The bankers spending the most time in the office aren’t always who you expect
We had over 2,000 global responses to our bonus expectations survey. Aside from asking our respondents how they expected their bonuses to change this coming season, we also asked them about how secure they felt in their jobs, and whether they planned to look for new jobs in 2026. We also asked them how many days a week they were spending in the office.
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The result was more mixed than we expected. Aside from regional powerhouse ADIB, where respondents who worked there spent nearly the entire week in the office, the most amount of time was reported by respondents from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan – who spent around 4.5 days a week on average in the office.
That wouldn’t be surprising if not for their rivals. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley’s employees who responded to our survey said that they spent just 3.8 days a weeks in the office. And respondents who said they worked at Citi said they spent only 3.4 hours a week there.
Citi in particular was not surprising. The bank doubled down on its hybrid working offering while its rivals pushed for a full five-day return.
Citi respondents had the lowest average number of days in the office of any bank we polled. It was followed closely by bankers from UBS, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank.
Still, not everyone is happy with their situation. “The office culture is terrible,” said one Deutsche Bank risk associate in Singapore. “I can only do two days a week max in the office,” said a senior colleague of theirs at Deutsche in London.
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