These are the 18 highest paying banks in Britain— Goldman Sachs is not number one

REUTERS/Toby Melville

The banking world is one of the best paid industries on the planet.

But the difference between what each institution pays its employees can vary wildly.

We used data provided by salary-benchmarking site Emolument to compare the average annual pay — combining base salaries and bonuses — of associates, and managing directors at some of the biggest banks operating in the UK to get a sense of the differences in pay in the industry.

Associates are mid-level employees who usually have at least a few years of experience under their belts, which means they’re usually still in their 20s. MDs on the other hand, are some of the most senior employees at any firm, overseeing teams of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

Obviously this means that the gap in pay between these employees is huge. Therefore, taking an average of their two pay levels gives a pretty good indicator of how well a bank pays across the board.

Unsurprisingly, the best paid bankers work for American firms, with smaller banks from continental Europe compensate their employees relatively poorly. Britain’s financial institutions were generally somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Check out the highest paying banks in the UK below.