The Lifestyle Factor: How Location Is Influencing Talent Decisions

For a long time, the story of senior finance careers was a simple one. Go where the deal flow is. Go where the pay is highest. Worry about lifestyle later, if at all.

Our latest research, Inside the Minds of Dealmakers 2026, suggests that story is changing. Croft & Co commissioned an independent survey of 100 senior finance professionals across the UK, all earning in excess of £100,000, working across investment banking, private equity, M&A, corporate finance and corporate development. What came back was a clear signal that location and lifestyle now sit alongside compensation as real drivers of career decisions, rather than as an afterthought once the numbers work.

Mobility without desperation

Two thirds of respondents told us they are more likely to consider changing roles than they were two years ago, and just over half said they are likely to move within the next twelve months. That could easily be read as a market in flux, full of people simply looking for the exit. Our sense from the wider findings is different. What we are seeing is a workforce that has grown more deliberate about what a move actually needs to deliver before they will make it. We recently spoke to a Director in a high-demand sector (A&D, PUI, Digital Infrastructure, etc.) at an American Bulge Bracket who declined a role because it would have meant him giving up his Fridays 'from home' - a weekly trip to Cornwall was now baked in to his weekly routine.

Pay still matters enormously. Sixty one per cent would leave for a higher salary, and 53% for stronger long term financial rewards such as equity or profit share. But 51% said they would leave for better work life balance, a figure that sits almost as high as the purely financial motivators. When over a quarter of respondents have turned down a role because it did not offer the right deal exposure or a meaningful step forward, and 28% said they would accept a lower salary for stronger deal opportunities, it becomes clear that senior candidates are pricing in far more than the headline number.

Location is now a strategic lever, not an afterthought

The international picture is where this shift becomes most visible. Eighty two per cent of respondents said they would consider relocating for the right role, and 55% said their appetite for international opportunities has increased. Europe and New York remain the most desired destinations, at 63% and 59% respectively, but more than a third of respondents said they would consider the Middle East, and 32% named Singapore. These are not throwaway answers from people idly curious about life abroad. They reflect senior professionals actively weighing deal flow, earning potential and quality of life against one another, market by market.

Tellingly, more respondents said lifestyle would influence a relocation decision than cited salary as the deciding factor. For a sector that has spent decades defining success almost entirely in financial terms, that is a meaningful evolution and change. It suggests that even at the most senior, most established levels of a career, people are weighing up a different question: less "what does this role pay" and more "what kind of life does this role, and this city, let me build".

The wider market backs this up. Dubai's International Financial Centre has reported a sharp rise in new company registrations through 2026, as global banks, hedge funds and wealth managers expand their regional footprint and Dubai pushes to become one of the world's top four financial hubs by 2033, according to DIFC and Global Financial Centres Index reporting. That expansion is not happening in a vacuum. It is creating real demand for senior talent willing to relocate, and it lines up neatly with the appetite we are seeing directly from candidates in our own research. Singapore and New York tell a similar story in their respective regions, each competing hard for the same pool of experienced dealmakers.

Why this matters for employers

Burnout is part of the explanation. Ninety five per cent of respondents reported some level of burnout, and 91% said work life balance is extremely or very important to them. Fifty eight per cent said better work life balance would be enough to keep them in a role. Read alongside the mobility data, this points to something firms cannot afford to ignore: high performers can look entirely resilient right up until the point they hand in their notice. Firms that build sustainability of workload into the offer itself, rather than treating it as a perk to mention at the end of an interview, are the ones best placed to keep their best people.

Location plays directly into this equation. A relocation is rarely just a pay rise with a new backdrop. It is a decision about pace of life, family, culture and long term trajectory, all bound up together. Employers who can speak credibly to that whole picture, not just the compensation and the desk, will find themselves with a real advantage in a market where 66% of senior professionals remain confident and are actively weighing their options.

The pattern holds outside the UK too. Vault's 2026 survey of thousands of banking professionals across North America found firms such as Moelis and Company climbing the rankings largely on the strength of quality of work and life factors rather than pay alone, while Centerview Partners has held the top overall spot for seven consecutive years partly on the back of its work and life balance score. Recruiters covering the US market report that lateral candidates are increasingly negotiating hard on bonus protection and stability rather than base salary alone, which points to certainty and quality of life mattering as much as the headline figure across the industry, not just among the professionals we surveyed.

Our view

At Croft & Co, this is precisely how our specialist knowledge helps our clients make better decisions. We work exclusively across M&A and investment banking talent in London and Paris, which means we are not guessing at what draws a VP from Paris to New York, or what would make a director think twice about a move to the Middle East. We see these calculations play out in real time and understand that a compelling proposition today has to speak to leadership quality, deal exposure, progression and flexibility alongside location and lifestyle, sitting around compensation rather than replacing it.

The firms that win the best talent in 2026 will not necessarily be the ones writing the largest cheques. They will be the ones who understand, with real precision, what a senior dealmaker is optimising for, and who can build and communicate an opportunity that reflects it. That is the work we do every day, and it is why this research matters as much to us as it does to the clients we share it with.

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Sources

• Croft & Co, Inside the Minds of Dealmakers 2026, independent survey of 100 senior UK finance professionals, conducted by Research Clever, April 2026
• Vault Careers, 25 Best Investment Banks to Work For in 2026, legacy.vault.com
• Dubai International Financial Centre and the Global Financial Centres Index, H1 2026 reporting on Dubai's ranking and growth as a financial hub, wam.ae
• Selby Jennings, Investment Banking USA Hiring Outlook 2026, selbyjennings.com

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