Jobs in the finance sector can be highly lucrative. This straightaway means that the competition must be high to bag these high-paying jobs. It’s a given that big paycheque jobs will demand for higher qualifications, and that’s exactly the case with finance jobs. For a majority of financial sector jobs, you need an undergraduate degree as the minimum educational qualification, while a large percentage of the current lot of working professionals hold a post-graduate degree. These comprise MBAs and PhDs. More often than not, advanced skillset in mathematics, economics, and statistics is rewarded in the said industry.

Median annual salary of financial advisors in the U.S. in 2019, by industry (in 1,000 USD)

Source: Statista

There exist an array of opportunities in the finance sector, and hence, you as an aspirant, have multiple sub-domains of financial industry to choose from. You may decide to join the banking and financial services sector, finance department of a bank, or would like to break into the world of financial markets or the much broad investment banking domain. All of these financial careers pay way above average to start with, and later on, in your prospective future, as you will gain experience, sky is the limit!

Now, let’s delve straight into the primary objective of the article, i.e. to list the top-paying finance jobs (best private equity jobs and coveted investment banking job positions).

Highest-Paying Finance Jobs Across the Globe

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management jobs fall under the umbrella of most reputable roles in the whole finance domain. Portfolio managers, more popularly known as money managers, supervise retail client and institutional investments in their day-to-day work. This, by default, lends them enormous power, and at the same time, puts on them immense degree of responsibility. They offer strategic advice to their wealthy clients in context of investment decision-making and drafting customized investment plans. It’s quite common for them to specialize in a niche asset class, like fixed income or equities.

Corporate Finance

This specific subdomain of finance career pertains to the finance teams of a financial corporation. Professionals in this sector of finance can choose to work in multiple industries, of course, not at the same time.

Varied Kinds of Corporate Finance Roles:

Finance Manager: Every corporation employs finance managers, and these individuals are sitting on the top of the food chain when it comes to raking in big sums of money, as annual compensations, in the finance industry. They oversee and manage a plethora of financial aspects of an organisation that include bookkeeping, financial reporting, planning, and risk management.

Accounts Manager: He is the one who shoulders the general accounting function and supervises the completion of financial statements and ledger accounts.A few corporations demand for a CPA (Certified Public Account) credential along with a minimum work experience of seven years in accounting to consider you for the said job role.

Risk Management: These finance professionals keep an eye on the potential pitfalls that may arrive at any time for a business, and affect it in an adverse manner. Such possible pitfall may come in the form of operational risks, credit risks, liquidity risks, and market risks. Risk managers are among the highest-paid professionals in the private equity industry.

Investment Banking Jobs

Investment banking firms generally work with governments, corporations, and other large-scale financial organizations to assist them in raising funds, or offering advice to them in terms of strategy-making. Such financial firms make big investments in new or fast-expanding ventures, facilitate M&A (mergers and acquisitions), and help put private companies on stock exchanges. Investment banks also deal with selling and buying an array of investment products, like bonds, securities, and stocks.

The biggest of names in the said domain, worldwide, are Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. But, they are not the only option for aspirants to aspire for, in terms of dream companies to work for. Investment banking teams do exist at large commercial banks, such as Citigroup, and also at boutique banks, and smaller regional banks. As a matter of fact, investment banking, as a private equity career, can be a highly lucrative long-term proposition.

Varied Kinds of Investment Banking Job Roles

M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions): Banking professionals who focus on M&A activities, are usually experts at offering strategic advice to corporations that seek mergers with their immediate market competition, or intend to buy smaller firms in the industry they operate into. M&A professionals create and develop financial models to scrutinize large-scale prospective deals.

Underwriters: Raiding funds is an integral part of a financial firm’s underwriting division. Underwriters typically work in client-facing job roles, thereby communicating with outside contacts to identify monetary needs. At the same time, they work with security salespeople and traders to discover the best options.

Private Equity: A number of investment banks comprise a private equity division, however, such jobs are usually found at smaller, but specialist firms. Banking professionals in this subdomain of finance help raise capital for private enterprises, while keeping a small percentage of profits as their commission for facilitating deals. Some of the top US private equity firms comprise the Carlyle Group, the Blackstone Group, and KKR & Co. Inc.

Venture Capital: VC firms specialize in offering funds, or monetary help, to emerging start-ups and fast-rising small firms, across industry segments. While a large percentage of target companies fail to prosper in the long-term, venture capitalists make monetary benefits for themselves in two ways – by charging a fee for managing a fund’s money, and through carried interest made on their fund’s return.

Hope the article has helped finance aspirants absorb some useful information on their prospective career roles. Many thanks.