What graduates actually earn

The guides below cover graduate and early-career compensation across the four highest-paying professional tracks. Finance spans investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, sales and trading, equity research and asset management. Consulting covers MBB and the wider strategy market. Law covers BigLaw and commercial firms, and technology covers software engineering and quant roles. Each guide pairs the UK and US market side by side rather than treating them as separate worlds, because most candidates are weighing London against New York or at least want to know how the two compare.

For every role you get an indicative pay table by level, a breakdown of how the package is built, how pay scales from first year to senior, and the firms known to pay at the top of the band. Where the data supports it, guides also cover pay by financial centre and by desk or track.

The headline number people quote is almost never just salary. Base pay is the fixed, contractual figure that lands every month. It is the most stable part and the least negotiable at graduate level, where most firms run lockstep bands. Bonus is the variable part, paid once or twice a year, and it is where the real spread lives: two analysts on the same base can take home very different totals depending on the firm, the desk and the year. A sign-on or joining bonus is a one-off payment to get you in the door, often with clawback strings if you leave early.

In private equity and hedge funds, carried interest and performance fees eventually dwarf salary and bonus, but they vest over years and only pay out when funds perform, so they belong in a different mental column from cash pay. In technology, equity such as RSUs plays the same long-horizon role. Reading a total-compensation number without knowing which of these buckets it draws from is the most common way candidates over- or under-estimate an offer.

Every figure on this hub is an indicative market range, not a guaranteed offer. A band describes roughly the 25th to 75th percentile of what the market pays for a role at a given level. A specific firm can sit above or below it, and elite boutiques or mega-funds often pay a clear premium over the median. Treat the numbers as a way to sense-check an offer and spot when something is unusually high or low, rather than as a promise.

The UK and US columns are not simple currency conversions. New York base and bonus figures run materially higher than London for the equivalent seat, driven by market size, cost of living and tax treatment, so we quote each market in its own currency, GBP for the UK and USD for the US, and never just multiply one by an exchange rate. British readers will see CV and assessment centre where American readers see resume and superday or final round, but the pay logic underneath is the same.

Compensation in these industries is cyclical, not fixed. In finance especially, bonuses track deal flow and trading revenue: in a strong year bonus pools swell and firms compete on total pay, while in a downturn base tends to hold steady because it is contractual, bonuses compress and hiring slows. Law and consulting are steadier but still respond to demand, with periodic lockstep pay wars resetting the market when one firm raises its scale and rivals move to match. A number that was accurate last cycle can drift, so read each figure as a point on a moving curve.

These guides are for students and early-career candidates deciding where to apply, anyone weighing two offers, and career-changers benchmarking a move into finance, consulting, law or tech. Start with the role you are targeting, read how the package splits and scales, then check the firms named as top payers and follow through to their full firm guides for the application and interview process. Knowing the number is the first step, and the rest of Intervyo is built to help you earn it.