Same Number, Different Offer
A senior banker tells you they have two offers, both worth about the same. The obvious assumption is that the choice will come down to the team, the platform, or a modest gap in quantum. Look at how each package is actually put together, though, and the two can turn out to be very different propositions.
The European Banking Authority’s latest high earner data shows how wide that gap can be. Among staff paid more than one million euro per annum, the weighted average ratio of variable to fixed pay was 98% at credit institutions and 359% at investment firms (EBA, Dashboard on High Earners, 2024 Data, April 2026). The investment firm figure is shaped heavily by trading roles, so it isn’t a like-for-like comparison with advisory banking. But these firms do compete for some of the same senior people, particularly in London and Paris.
Put those ratios into a single package and the difference becomes concrete. On a total of one million euro, a ratio of 98% means roughly 505,000 euro in fixed pay. At 359%, fixed pay falls to around 218,000 euro, with the rest variable. That is the same headline figure built in two quite different ways.
Where the high earners are growing
The total number of high earners across EU banks and investment firms rose to 2,554 in 2024, up from 2,343 the year before. The growth was uneven. Credit institutions grew 7% to 2,266, while investment firms grew 30% to 288 (EBA, Dashboard on High Earners, 2024 Data, April 2026).
That 30% needs some care. It sits on a base of only 288 people, and there is a mechanical effect at work too. The threshold is a fixed one million euro, so people paid mostly through bonuses cross it in a strong year and fall below it in a weak one. A variable-heavy population will swing more in number by design. The growth tells us that variable-heavy pay rewarded more people handsomely in 2024, which is not quite the same as saying those firms are winning the market.
A broader population shows a similar pattern. In 2023, the average ratio for all identified staff, not just high earners, was 59.59% across EU institutions and 145.85% at investment firms. Within investment firms, dealing and underwriting staff averaged 521% (EBA, Report on Remuneration and Gender Pay Gap Benchmarking, 2021 to 2023 Data, April 2025). Those figures cover just over 38,000 identified staff at institutions and around 1,100 at investment firms.
What lifting the cap really changed
Most investment firms have been outside the EU cap on bankers’ bonuses since 2021. Banks remain within it, which limits variable pay to 100% of fixed pay or 200% with shareholder approval. When the UK scrapped the cap for its banks in 2023, many read it as permission to pay bankers more.
The EU’s uncapped firms offer a hint of what that can look like in practice. They haven’t simply paid larger bonuses on top of the same salaries. They pay in a different way, with a smaller fixed base and a larger, more conditional variable component. For the firm, that means costs that flex with performance. For the individual, it means less of their income is certain.
That doesn’t make the uncapped offer weaker by default. In a strong year it can pay considerably more. But for a candidate who values certainty, a capped bank with a higher salary can be the more attractive offer, even at the same headline number.
This matters more to some candidates than others. Banks working within the cap have often kept pay competitive through role-based allowances, which count as fixed pay. Someone whose mortgage was sized against a generous allowance may find that an uncapped offer, with its lower fixed base, leaves them worse off in a lean year.
What the candidate would be leaving behind
The other half of the comparison is what a banker gives up by moving. EBA benchmarking shows that around 54% of cash and 78% of instrument-based variable pay was deferred for the management body in its management function (EBA, Report on Remuneration and Gender Pay Gap Benchmarking, 2021 to 2023 Data, April 2025). Deferral is typically lighter further down, but for senior producers it can still amount to a substantial sum.
A banker three years into a rolling deferral schedule has unvested awards falling due in each of the next three years. A buyout has to replace each of those tranches with its own timing, instrument and risk. A typical annual pay rise is small by comparison, which is why the deferral question often decides a move before the new package is even discussed.
Asking the right questions
In the London and Paris teams we recruit for, the moves that go smoothly tend to be the ones where three questions were answered early. What proportion of the current package is fixed? What is unvested, and when does it vest? And what would a poor year look like under each structure being considered?
None of these are difficult questions, but they’re asked less often than “what are you looking for?”, and the answers usually do more to explain why someone will or won’t move.
Some caveats
The EBA figures cover the EU rather than the UK, so the read across to London comes from anecdotal titbits from our own candidate interactions. Structure doesn’t trump quantum for everyone, either. Plenty of senior producers will take the highest number offered and manage the consequences themselves, and a firm that over-engineers its offer can lose a candidate to one that kept things simple.
Still, very little of this shows up on a CV. Whether someone is carrying a long deferral tail, whether their allowance was cut last year, or whether they are comparing a capped employer with an uncapped one rarely comes out until the conversation is well underway. Understanding it earlier is often what separates an offer that lands from one that looked right on paper.
Sources: European Banking Authority, Dashboard on High Earners, 2024 Data, April 2026; European Banking Authority, Report on Remuneration and Gender Pay Gap Benchmarking, 2021 to 2023 Data, April 2025.
