Jane Street: A better option than hedge funds for elite female traders?
In the UK, there's a shortage of female algorithmic traders. Financial News reported last month that just 9% of the country's algo traders are women, but Jane Street seems to have a disproportionate amount of them.
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Using Gov.uk's gender pay gap service, we looked at how many female employees were in the respective quartiles of seven hedge funds and trading firms in 2024. Despite women making up a smaller percentage of its total workforce than at some competitors, Jane Street had a greater percentage of women in its top quartile than any other firm.
15.5% of top quartile earners at 'Jane Street UK Partnership' were women last year, up from 10.3% the year before. That's better than hedge fund Marshall Wace, where women constituted 13.7% of top quartile earners despite women making up 27.5% of the firm as a whole. The firm with the lowest amount of women in the top quartile was Squarepoint Capital, where women made up just 4.8% of top earners.
When looking at firmwide average pay disparities for bonuses and salaries, some firms stick out for the wrong reasons. High-frequency trading (HFT) firm Jump Trading paid its female staff 81% less in bonuses than its men. The worst for hourly pay was fast rising quant fund Qube Research and Technologies, which paid female staff 58% less in salaries per head than its men.
Despite Jane Street's comparatively high proportion of women in the top quartile ad reputation for being a bit communist about its pay, the spoils aren't equally shared among female staff. Mean average bonuses (including the firm's lucrative profit-sharing initiative) at Jane Street were 61.6% lower than the average for women than men, and hourly pay was 16.5% lower.
The firm with the lowest disparity between men and women for mean average bonuses was hedge fund Point72, where women earned 'only' 46.4% less than men. The median average bonus for women at Point72 was much lower however, 68.6% less than the male median, meaning there must be a few very well-paid women at the fund skewing that average. Mean average hourly pay for women at the fund was 27.1% less than men.
Jane Street currently has 59 open roles in London, 20 of which are graduate and intern opportunities. There will be a lot more on the horizon, however, as the firm plans to double its office space in the city. Female traders may want to keep an eye on the openings.
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