The definitive ranking of the cities where bankers are paid the most (spoiler: London isn’t at the top)
Looking for a payrise? You could do much worse than moving to New York, according to new findings, which showed bankers in the big apple earn almost as much from their salary alone as those in London do from their salary and bonus combined.
Salary benchmarking site Emolument.com compared the salaries of bankers at analyst and director level in some of the world's biggest financial centres – and found London comes in fourth and third place, respectively.
Meanwhile, New York comes top for analyst-level workers, and second at director level – jostling for the top spot with Hong Kong.
Highest-paying cities for analysts
| City | Salary | Bonus |
| New York | $83,000 | $32,000 |
| Zurich | $89,000 | $10,000 |
| Hong Kong | $85,000 | $7,000 |
| London | $71,000 | $14,000 |
| Frankfurt | $66,000 | $11,000 |
| Paris & Ile-de-France | $55,000 | $11,000 |
| Singapore | $51,000 | $10,000 |
| Amsterdam | $54,000 | – |
| Milan | $49,000 | – |
That's largely thanks to NY's high bonus policy – at director level, workers can expect to earn $271,000 (£190,500) when bonus season comes around, by far the most of any city.
But before you book those tickets to New York, it may be worth taking into account taxation: according to Emolument, income tax in the city means analysts on salaries of $115,000 will be left with $75,000 after tax – compared with those in Singapore, who will only pay taxes of $3,000 on their $61,000 income.
"Taking into account cost of living, the pay gap between both locations is almost nil," said Emolument.
Highest-paying cities at director level
| City | Salary | Bonus |
| Hong Kong | $274,000 | $265,000 |
| New York | $227,000 | $271,000 |
| London | $226,000 | $192,000 |
| Singapore | $228,000 | $154,000 |
| Dubai | $230,000 | $142,000 |
| Zurich | $202,000 | $45,000 |
| Paris & Ile-de-France | $127,000 | $116,000 |
| Milan | $127,000 | $55,000 |
In fact, if you're expecting to make the jump from analyst to director level anytime soon, there are much worse places to be than Singapore – where directors can expect to earn six times more than analysts.
But Alice Leguay, co-founder at Emolument.com, added that those looking to make the move to Asia should be on their guard.
"While Asia seems to be a sweet spot in terms of balancing amounts of banking regulation, remuneration and quality of life, bankers should focus on available opportunities in specific institutions as some non-Asian banks still struggle to win mandates in the region, which could result in moving into a frustrating professional dynamic with low yields in terms of raising one's profile and visibility in the industry globally, impacting future earnings as a banker." You have been warned…