Thanks to salary benchmarking site Emolument.com, now you can do more than just guess about how much your bonus will be next year if you work in the financial sector in the UK. Emolument published a report on December 7th that focused on UK banker bonus projections for 2016. Overall, bonuses in the UK financial sector are expected to slip slightly in 2016 compared to 2015 levels. That said, there will be significant variation based on career specialty, as equity traders are likely to see their bonuses move up a little, M&A specialists and especially commodity traders will probably see their bonuses fall by as much as 10%.
2016 UK banker bonus projections
The methodology for the 2016 banker bonus projections involved a correlation between bonuses and deal volumes over the last three years, and data on the total number and size of deals in 2015.
According to Emolument’s projections, UK investment bankers are likely to see their 2016 bonuses fall as much as 5%. Bonuses for associates are projected to shrink by around 3%, bonuses for VPs by 5%, for directors 4.6% and for managing directors by around 4.4%.
Commodity traders are facing the biggest reductions in their bonuses in 2016. Emolument anticipates that bonuses for associate commodity traders are likely to fall by 8.9%, bonuses for VPs should fall by 9.4%, bonuses for directors by 8.8% and bonuses for MDs by close to 8.6%.
Bonuses for equity traders are probably going to be moving up in 2016, based on Emolument’s projections. Bonuses for associates are anticipated to be up by 3.3%, bonuses for VPs up by 2.6%, directors by 2.7% and managing directors by
Meanwhile, the FT predicts an overall downward trend in bonuses, but claims banks will do whatever it takes to keep their top performers, even if it comes at the cost of bonuses in other departments.
Statement from Alice Leguay of Emolument.com
Alice Leguay from Emolument.com said: “Previously, receiving a ‘doughnut’ or zero bonus was akin to being encouraged to find employment elsewhere. With ever more restricted bonus pools, it may be that doughnuts become more commonplace, as banks limit substantial bonus payments to key outperforming staff they simply cannot afford to lose.”
