Jane Street's average UK pay dwindles after a year of hiring
Electronic trading giant Jane Street has around 2600 employees worldwide, and the number of those in the UK has been growing. According to recently released 2023 accounts of its UK subsidiary, via companies house, the firm has hired substantially across each of its functions, but there's a catch in the form of compensation.
'Jane Street UK Partnership LLP' increased its headcount by 31.7% in 2023, reaching 636 employees. Its trading function added 59 people, followed by the technology and infrastructure teams, which added 50 and 44 respectively.
As headcount has risen, 'salaries and wages' per head at the company have fallen. In 2022, 483 staff were paid $789k on average; last year, that figure fell to $680k.
Jane Street performed incredibly well in the past year, however, generating $10.6bn in net trading revenue with wild revenues per head, so why hasn't pay gone up? Insiders have described Jane Street's pay structure as "a bit communist;" everyone is paid well, but compensation of high performers is not that differentiated.
Jane Street's hiring in 2024 seems more low-key, but includes some senior names. The firm added Jo Smith as global head of quant trading operations for the EMEA region, who joined after working at Goldman Sachs for 21 and a half years. Luke Pebody, a senior engineer from hedge fund Balyasny, joined in April.
Hiring may pick up in the latter half of the year. Jane Street has 28 open roles currently, with positions including machine learning engineers, FPGA engineers, metadata specialists and, of course, quants.
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