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Some of the richest people in the City are headhunters

10 July 2008

Sarah Butcher

If you want to make big money in life, the best careers to go for are (in descending order): trading, ‘general finance’ (AKA all areas of finance that aren’t trading or insurance), law, and…recruitment.

Based on pay figures drawn from clients of wealth manager ‘The Route’, the average top end trader is earning £1.5m, the average top end ‘general financier’ is earning £1m, the average top end lawyer earns £572k, and the average top end recruitment person is taking home a pleasing £477k.

Everyone knows that traders, bankers and lawyers are big money earners, but who are these wealthy recruiters? Victoria Jackson, business development manager at Route, says they’re mostly City headhunters.

Daniel Whomes, director of search to search firm The Ocean Partnership, says £477k is eminently possible for headhunters in the right place at the right time: “To earn that kind of money you need to be with the right firm, work the right market and have been building up a network of people for a number of years. The figure would be much lower at a contingent recruitment firm, due to fee size.”

Shaun Springer, chief executive of fixed income search firm Napier Scott, says £477k is the top of the market: “There are some people here earning that kind of money, but there are plenty more who aren’t. It's a commission-based industry so I'd love to be paying that out as an average.”

Comments (43)

The article isn't saying that Mr. average recruiter is earning £477k. It's saying that the average recruiter who's a client of this particular wealth manager is earning £477k. Given only better off recruiters are likely to require wealth managers in the first place, it's inevitable that this will be a snapshot of what's going on at the top of the market.

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Comments (43)

  • Again another totally pointless and blatantly wrong piece.  The 'average' headhunter is earning nowhere near £477k and the 'average' banker is not earning £1m, esp in this market.

    KLM 10 Jul 2008

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  • so Why are they sacking managers and associate from permanent jobs in the biggest inv banks?

    AV 10 Jul 2008

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  • Why are some banks sacking traders? If traders were good, they could still make money as markets fall. Or are these just the execution 'traders', who just sit and take calls from the real brain men/women.

    John 10 Jul 2008

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  • This article is absolute rubbish.

    Mike 10 Jul 2008

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  • The "average" "recruiter" is not earning £477k, this is top end.

    Computer Person 10 Jul 2008

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  • What about the likes of Egon Zehnder, Korn/Ferry, Heidrick and Struggles, Spencer Stuart, Russell Reynolds etc.?

    Banshou 10 Jul 2008

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  • This article is a lot of rubbish. What a waste of everyone's time. The figures are utterly wrong (maybe she confused billing and earnings) and all they do is exacerbate antagonist attitudes towards headhunters. This article is talking about top earners and the figures are plausible but in NO WAY this constitutes and average.

    p*ssedoff 10 Jul 2008

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  • Clearly, you're mis-understanding the point, which is that of the clients of Route - the wealth manager - some are recruiters, and the average earnings for this group is around £500k. This is not to say you usually earn that much as a phone jockey, but some headhunters working in the City of London can earn enough money to warrant the services of a wealth manager. Something to aspire to perhaps?

    Paul 10 Jul 2008

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  • Sarah! Please let me know in which company the "average" recruitment consultant earn that sort of money. I feel now that i chose the wrong company ;)

    thanks for making me laugh anyway

    raf 10 Jul 2008

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  • This story is wildly inaccurate and misleading - To earn this amount you would need to bill over $2m - and there are very few people who really do this and usually covering the IB or markets areas - where the fees are heavily capped in any case.

    Chris 10 Jul 2008

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