The Top 10 Ideal Employers for compensation, 2024-25
Our Ideal Employer survey for 2024 had a pretty clear winner from the 8,000 votes: JPMorgan. The rankings were a bit tighter across the top ten, and they got even tighter when we asked our respondents for their Ideal Employers based on specific qualities - like compensation.
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When compensation is the key metric, JPMorgan is no longer in pole position. Based on the perception of compensation (salary plus bonus) alone, electronic trading firm Jane Street is the Ideal Employer in finance. Jane Street scored 24% above the global average for other Ideal Employers for perception of its pay. That's more than last year, when it scored around 15% higher.
Jane Street is seen as paying well for a reason. The firm doesn't release global accounts, but it paid its 636 UK staff an average of nearly $800k per head last year, not including the partnership profits distributed to senior staff. That number includes administrative staff, too, which means that revenue-generators at the firm earn even more.
Jane Street pays well globally too. Our analysis of worksite forums such as Levels.fyi shows that entry-level software engineers earn around $325k on average at Jane Street, with the best educated (such as PhDs) earning even higher than that.
Citadel, the hedge fund, ranked second as the Ideal Employer for compensation. It, too, doesn't release global accounts, but accounts released for its UK subsidiaries reveal its generosity. Employees at Citadel's UK-registered subsidiaries, earned between $566k and $1.5m on average in 2023. The firm also operated a legal partnership that distributed $23m per head to its partners.
Third-placed Goldman Sachs might not pay as generously as Citadel or Jane Street, but it pays exceptionally well – for a bank. In our compensation report from earlier this year, we found that Goldman Sachs was the highest-paying bank in the world, with average compensation among respondents to our survey earning just shy of $372k on average.
Download the full 2024 eFinancialCareers Ideal Employer report here.
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