How much do you need to live a good life and buy a family home in London or New York City? More than an income $850k (£632k), it seems. 

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Disputes about the amount of money required for a good life in major financial centres are as old as the hills. In the dark days of 2021, someone explained here that $1m a year is only enough to cover your “bleed” costs in New York City. Something similar was said about London in the even darker days of 2013. £300k is deemed a “breakeven” lifestyle for bankers in the city.

Now Bloomberg notes that lawyers are experiencing the same pressures. Writing on Reddit, one female lawyer says she’s earning $850k but can’t afford to buy a home for her family of five in Brooklyn because house prices are “insane.” “Anything semi-decent (move-in ready) is either wildly unaffordable—especially at today’s 7% interest rates—or in a neighborhood where private school would be a must, making it just as unaffordable,” she adds. She’s spending $6k a month on rent and $21k each month in total but doesn’t feel rich. “Making around $850K…just doesn’t feel like that much money,” she reflects. 

Anyone making less than $850k might disagree, but as signs of a house price correction appear in both the US and the UK, there are equally signs that banking lifestyles are becoming unaffordable even for bankers. The problem is most acute for juniors with $100k+ salaries but no accumulated wealth. “How is NYC affordable for analysts?” asked one incoming junior banker on Wallstreetoasis in June, noting that a $120k base salary is only $7k a month after tax. In London, there have long been complaints that life is unaffordable due to high rents, high taxes and student loan repayments. 

If you work as a lawyer, you may at least be in for some respite while rents rise and you wait for house prices to fall. Bloomberg observes that legal pay is rising fast, with some London juniors now earning £180k instead of the £100k they earned a few years ago. At the top end, star lawyers with client relationships are now earning $30m. They might even be able to afford to buy a family home with that. 

Separately, the Financial Times notes that the amount of carried interest paid to the UK’s top private equity professionals has fallen for the first time in nearly a decade.

Last year, 2,770 private equity professionals in the UK earned £3.3bn in carried interest, or £1.2m each. This was down from the £3.7bn paid to 2,860 UK private equity professionals one year previously (£1.3m each). 

What’s wrong with private equity pay? The FT suggests that carried interest is falling because it’s become harder to exit portfolio companies and generate a profit. When carried interest is generated in the UK, it’s now taxed at 45% instead of 28%. 

Carried interest is paid in addition to salaries and bonuses, which themselves can easily be £800k for senior staff, so private equity people are hardly struggling. £2m a year is at least enough for a flat in Brixton and three weekend breaks to the south coast. 

Meanwhile…

Employees at sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East want carried interest too. (Bloomberg) 

KKR renegotiated terms with institutional backers to enable it to hand wealthy individuals a bigger cut of its private equity deals. (FT)

Matthew Moulding, the co-founder of the THG Group, is accusing bankers at Numis of “increasingly outrageous” actions to destabilise his company after they said in an analyst note that there were irregularities in accounting. Numis is denying this. (The Times) 

Fintech firm Capitolis is expanding after attracting $5m in investment each from Citi, State Street, Morgan Stanley and UBS. (Trade) 

Goldman Sachs spent 19% more on compensation in the UK in the first six months of 2025 and the same period of 2024. (Financial News) 

AI is making the job market tougher for young college graduates, but if you work in professional and business services, wage growth has actually accelerated over the past year to levels solidly above pre-pandemic rates. (Bloomberg) 

Citadel and Dymon are hiring in Asia. (Bloomberg) 

Ex-hedge fund guy Stephen Miran will fill the soon-to-be vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors until the end of January, He’ll get a vote on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, and is likely to support Trump’s calls for aggressive interest rate cuts. (FT)

Hedge fund manager’s day in the life under Trump goes viral. (Twitter/X)

After weeks of minor losses that one fund executive described as a “long, slow bleed,” systematic funds ended July with a strong week and recovered 30% of their losses. (Business Insider) 

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