Wall Street bankers’ bonuses leapfrog City in ‘less impressive’ year
Wall Street bankers have leapfrogged ahead of the City as the industry’s swelling bonus pot proved “far less impressive” than prior expectations.
In the US, the average bonus scored was $154,344 (£114,00) in 2025, marking a 5.85 per cent uplift from the year prior. This also topped the industry average growth of 4.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, back in the City bonus growth undershot the average at 3.5 per cent with the typical award coming in at $154,215, according to fresh data from jobs platform Efinancialcreers.
Despite 2025’s bonus pot uplift, it came under expectations according to those surveyed by Efinancialcareers.
“Bonus expectations were bullish… When we asked how much our audience
were expecting their bonuses to rise by in the fourth quarter of 2025, they said 50 per cent,” the report said.
“The reality was far less impressive.”
Bankers hoped to reap rewards of record year
Expectations had been elevated by a whopping year for banking giants with global titans pocketing record profit. Total profit at 4,300 US banks reached a record $300bn according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Bankers at Deutsche Bank were listed as pocketing the biggest boost with total compensation jumping 31 per cent. At Barclays, average bonus change was 11 per cent, with some “material risk takers” seeing their average bonus rise to £900,000.
HSBC’s average change was 11 per cent, though it was cited as remaining the lowest-paying bank in the survey. This comes despite the bank’s pot swelling to an over decade high of $4bn after the bank landed a profit of $29.9bn in 2025.
Buy-side firms, such as hedge funds and private equity giants, also dominated the bonus battle, with a far higher average increase than lenders at 7.5 per cent.
“The buy-side had a good 2025,” the report noted, with hedge funds reaching a record high for assets under management of $5tn in October 2025. Returns also averaged around the 12.5 per cent mark, hitting the highest since 2009.
Wall Street pulling back to the lead follows City bankers booking the sector’s top bonuses in 2024 following the lifting of pay restrictions imposed by the EU.
Last year, UK workers pocketed an average $149k bonus, compared to the US’ $145.8k.
Top bosses at British banks received a pay boost after the UK government scrapped EU bonus cap rules in 2023. The cap restricted bonuses to 100 per cent of a fixed salary or to 200 per cent in the event of shareholder approval. The move was intended to disincentivise high-risk decisionmaking by senior bankers in the wake of the financial crash.
Whilst the remaining EU states are forced to maintain the cap, post-Brexit Britain ditched the cap under Kwasi Kwarteng’s brief Chancellorship in a bid to lure senior bankers back to London.
The banking watchdog also launched reforms late last year to allow bankers to collect their bonuses much sooner. The new rules will allow part-payment of bonuses for the most senior bankers from year one, rather than year three under previous rules.