The best investment banking jobs of 2024, by the consultants banks love
Banks like Deutsche Bank might be spending less money on consultants this year, but consultants are not entirely obsolete. Goldman Sachs alone imparted $777m on "professional fees" in the first half of 2024. Citi still loves consultants, too, even though McKinsey & Co's work on Citi's data issues doesn't seem to have resolved much.
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It's not just McKinsey. Citi also likes working with BCG. As does HSBC. BCG should be popular at UBS, given that its former chairman Axel Webber now works there.
BCG's new report into how banks are faring in 2024 can therefore be expected to attract the attention of senior people who allocate headcount and resources between banking teams. It may also act as a proxy for where you ought to be working in investment banking now.
Based upon the BCG chart below, the best banking jobs this year are in:
- Healthcare-focused leveraged finance teams
- Consumer and retail-focused debt capital markets teams
- Healthcare DCM teams
On the same basis, the worst banking jobs this year are in industrials and materials equity capital markets-focused teams. ECM jobs as a whole look woeful; M&A jobs look tepid; leveraged finance jobs look great.
Year-on-year growth in investment banking revenues by product and sector cluster
Source: BCG and Refinitiv, as of July 2024
Separately, BCG suggests you probably don't want to be working for any form of APAC bank this year, and probably not for a European Bank. Canadian and UK banks look marginal. US banks are the best.
APAC banks' struggles are the result of woes in China. The Chinese investment banking fee pool is down 30% this year; BCG says Chinese fees have fallen 17% to 12% of the total as a result. US fees, however, are up from 49% to 55% of the world total. Happy days in New York.
Overall investment banking wallet share
Source: BCG
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