The ladder: five titles, and what each one is paid to do

01the five rungs

• Five titles, ten to fourteen years to the top^1,2

  Analyst for two to three years, associate for three to four, vice president for three to four, director for two to three, then managing director. Names differ between banks - the director level is senior vice president at some and executive director at others - but the job at each relative level is consistent. The schedule assumes promotion on time at every step.

• The analyst: presentations, analysis, administration^2,3

  Most analyst time goes on three things: building pitch books and other presentations, which is formatting-heavy and the part analysts find most tedious; analysis in Excel, from entering historical figures out of filings to models and valuation; and administration - scheduling, calls, the working group list. On a sell-side deal the analyst often runs the virtual data room buyers use.

• The associate checks and assigns^2,3

  Associates come either from the analyst class or straight from an MBA. The job adds harder modelling and the role of go-between: taking tasks from senior bankers, assigning them to analysts and checking the result - sometimes line by line against the filings, sometimes only whether the output makes sense. Client contact starts here.

• The vice president manages the deal^2,3

  The VP is a project manager: translating what the senior bankers want into work the juniors can do, running the process day to day and starting to own client relationships. Wall Street Prep calls it an account manager; the director above is an account manager learning to bring in business.

• The managing director is paid to sell^1,2

  An MD does very little execution. The job is knowing a sector well enough to see a deal coming - when a company will need capital, or a sale - pitching early, and winning the mandate. MD bonuses are in effect a share of the fees they bring in, so a great year has no ceiling and a terrible one can mean no bonus; median pay has been in the $1m to $2m range for decades, per a Wall Street Journal study cited in the 2026 report.

• A director who cannot originate stops there^1,3

  Director is the audition for managing director. Someone who runs deals well but cannot show they will bring in business tends to stall at director or VP, or is pushed out. Pay reflects the gap: the 2026 range for directors is $700k to $900k, and data at this level is thin even by the standards of banking pay.

next: moving up →

02moving up

• Two years as an analyst, or three^1,2

  The two main guides disagree, which is itself the answer. The 2026 salary report says most banks now promote analysts to associate after two years and a third-year analyst is rare; Wall Street Prep, updated July 2026, still describes a two-year programme after which top performers are offered a third year and promoted after it. Practice differs by bank and by year, so ask at offer stage.

• Associate to VP depends on there being a seat^1,2

  Associates typically spend about three and a half years before promotion to VP, and longer if the group does not need another VP. At that point the standard advice is to weigh moving to another bank for the title rather than waiting for one to open.

• The MBA is a second way in^2,3

  Banks hire associates directly out of MBA programmes, alongside analysts promoted from within. Some banks offer direct analyst-to-associate promotion instead of requiring analysts to leave for an MBA and come back. For someone who did not start as an analyst, the MBA remains the standard way in at associate level.

• Exits narrow as you climb³

  Analysts have the widest choice of buy-side roles, associates fewer, and a VP finds a move to the buy side hard. Leaving is a decision best made early, while the widest set of exits is still open.

• Up or out⁴

  Each rung has a fixed tenure, and at the end of it you are promoted or you leave: a third-year analyst who cannot yet work as an associate does not get a fourth year as an analyst. The upside, in the German guide's telling, is that at the junior levels promotion follows performance rather than a vacancy - though, as above, a group with no room for another VP can still slow the step to VP. The downside is that nobody can settle at a level.

• Where the promotions get hard⁴

  Almost every analyst makes associate. Selection tightens at VP, and the real gap comes after it: from director up, a banker is judged on the business they bring in, not on execution. The German guide described a queue forming at director in 2016, because a managing director seat has to be free and long-serving MDs were staying on - some directors were still waiting after five or six years.

• Where VPs go when they leave⁴

  By VP a banker is six or more years in, well past the two to four years after which most analysts move to private equity, and the buy side is largely closed. Those who leave usually go to a company's corporate development team, or to a finance director or CFO role at a smaller or mid-sized company.

• In Germany, associates are former analysts⁵

  In London and New York the associate class mixes promoted analysts with MBA graduates changing career, many with years in another industry. In Germany almost all associates were analysts first, and the MBA side door is rare.

next: how the pay works →

03how the pay works

• The base is fixed, the bonus is the variable^1,6

  First-year analyst bases at large US banks were raised to around $100k to $110k in 2021 - Goldman Sachs went from $85k to $110k - and the 2026 range is $100k to $125k. Everything above that is bonus, which is why total pay moves with the deal market while base barely moves at all.

• The bonus grows faster than the base¹

  At VP level bonuses start at about 100% of base and reach 200% to 250% by the third year, per the 2026 report; London associates' bonuses run at 80 to 100% of base. The higher the level, the more of total pay depends on the year - and at MD, on the individual's own fees.

• Pay follows the deal market, and the regulators count it^7,8

  The European Banking Authority counts everyone at an EU bank paid over €1m a year. The number rose from 2,343 in 2023 to 2,554 in 2024, which the EBA attributes partly to a rebound in advisory, capital markets and M&A. Investment banking is the largest single business area: 904 of the 2,266 high earners at credit institutions.

• Where the boutique premium actually is¹

  At analyst level there is almost none: top-ranked first-year boutique analysts were reported at about $180k to $195k, level with the bulge bracket. From associate level boutiques pay well above the large banks, and in cash rather than deferred stock. The tiers page sets out the figures by level.

next: pay in london and europe →

04pay in london and europe

No bank publishes junior pay by city. London has survey figures; continental Europe has almost none that can be checked, and this section says so rather than printing a guess.

• London pays less, and the gap is not small^1,9

  Expect 15 to 30% below the New York figures. The 2026 report estimates a London analyst's base rising from about £70k to £90k and total pay at £100k to £150k, with associate bases of £115k to £135k. A separate 2024 survey put London analysts at an average of roughly £100k to £136k a year. The report's author also notes that nobody publishes solid London pay reports any more.

• In the EU, the bonus is capped^8,10

  EU banks cannot pay a bonus above 100% of fixed pay, or 200% with shareholder approval; the UK scrapped the same cap on 31 October 2023. So pay at an EU entity tends to lean towards salary. The EBA's data show high earners close to the cap: the average bonus-to-salary ratio for EU bank high earners was 98.5% in 2024, against 358.7% at investment firms, which the cap does not cover.

• The one like-for-like comparison is old¹¹

  Goldman Sachs' own disclosures put its average London employee at $523k for 2020 and its average Frankfurt employee at $411k - London 27% higher. That is every employee, not analysts, and it is six years old. It is still the only published same-bank comparison between London and a continental city found for this page.

• Continental analyst pay: weigh the source first

  Figures for analysts in Frankfurt, Paris, Milan and Zurich circulate in recruiter blogs and salary aggregators, and they contradict each other. Before quoting one, ask who published it and how it was measured: a bank's own disclosure or a survey with a stated method outweighs any number of listings. The city pages cover each market's pay rules, from the EU bonus cap to what a London employer has to pay a sponsored hire.

next: hours, and the rules on them →

05hours, and the rules on them

• The survey that started the reforms¹²

  In February 2021, 13 first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs presented their own survey to management: an average of 95 hours a week, five hours' sleep a night and frequent unrealistic deadlines. It circulated publicly in March 2021; Goldman said it had already sped up hiring of entry-level staff.

• The cap is 80 hours, with a live-deal exception^13,14

  In September 2024 JPMorgan limited junior bankers to 80 hours a week in most cases, on top of a Friday-evening-to-Saturday-noon pencils-down and one full weekend off a quarter; live deals are exempt. Bank of America moved US staff to logging hours daily. JPMorgan also created a global role overseeing analysts' and associates' well-being, months after a Bank of America junior banker died in May 2024. The exemption covers exactly the weeks a cap would matter most.

• The tier changes the hours less than you would think^15,16

  Middle-market analysts are put at 65 to 75 hours a week against 80-plus at the largest banks, though some middle-market firms have the opposite reputation. Elite boutiques are not lighter, and some are known for longer hours. The group and the deal flow matter more than the label.

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