High-frequency trading firm Optiver bumped up UK pay after £45.6m profit share
Amsterdam-based high-speed trader and electronic market maker Optiver has its sights set on New York with a new office set to be opened in the city. If the firm handles it anything like it handled its UK expansion, incumbents have reason to be worried. Optiver moved into a big new office near St. Paul's in 2022 and recently released accounts for last year show the move has been going pretty well.
'Optiver UK Limited' brought in a total income of £102.8m ($140.2m) in 2024, up 34.4% year-on-year and up more than double its income in 2021, the year before the big move. The firm's headcount grew to 133 on average in 2024, meaning revenue per employee at Optiver's UK office was £773k ($1.05m).
A key selling point of working for Optiver is its profit sharing initiative; in 2024 it distributed £45.6m among its employees. In addition to wages, that meant Optiver staff received a total compensation of £467.6k last year, up from £447.4k in 2023. The firm has a system in which 'marbles' are allocated to staff, each representing a portion of the firm's PnL. The better your performance, the more marbles you receive and the bigger your bonus. Rival electronic trader Jane Street, by contrast, also has a profit share but is thought to have "limited variance [in pay] between medium and high-performers" according to insiders. Still, Jane Street ended up paying staff an average of £808k last year after bringing in $2.3bn in its UK entity.
Not all electronic traders had a good year. Tower Research's UK entity saw net trading revenue fall by roughly two thirds in 2024 according to accounts released earlier this week. The firm also has an Amsterdam based entity, which accounts for more of its total European revenue, but this has yet to release accounts for this year. Tower did not respond to a request for comment.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, Signal: @AlexMcMurrayEFC.88 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.
