Financial services bonus optimism for 2025 is very, very high
Bank bonuses for the bumper year of 2025 are a matter of debate. Compensation consultancy Johnson Associates expects bonuses to go up by anything up to 25%, depending on sector. But professionals within the industry seem to have much, much higher expectations.
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For example, the 2,000 people who replied to our bonus expectations survey, which ran across November 2025, are optimistic types. In late 2024, they told us they were expecting bonuses to go up by 50%. This year, they are saying the same again.
However, optimism is not equally spread. As the table below shows, the most optimistic professionals this year work in private credit and private equity, where bonuses are expected to increase by 68% and 61%, respectively. By comparison, employees at asset management firms expect this year’s bonuses to increase by only 32%. In many key sectors, bonus expectations are lower this year, but the overall average is bolstered by optimism in the “other” category, which includes fintech firms.
Bonus optimism in private equity and private credit is surprising, given the challenges faced by the sector this year. “Cockroaches” have appeared in private credit in the form of collapses such as that of First Brands and Tricolor, which both received huge non-bank loans in the run ups to their bankruptcies this year. JPMorgan, for example, suffered a $170m loss from Tricolor’s bankruptcy.
In private equity, exits have fallen to $79bn in Q3 of 2025, down 24% from $104bn in the previous quarter. S&P Global says much of the surviving deal value from was from secondaries, and a record low was from trade sales. Next year may be the year that reality bites, and and you wouldn’t know this from people’s expectations for their bonuses.
Some are realistic. One respondent to our survey, working in private equity in the UK, said that his particular sector (renewable energy), simply “can’t fundraise”. He expected his bonus to fall as a consequence.
Most are extremely optimistic. The “sector is booming”, said an APAC-based KKR junior in our survey. He expected his bonus to go up by 40% compared to last year.
Broadly speaking, those working on the buy-side (defined as firms that buy and hold securities for investment purposes such as hedge funds, asset management firms, and pension funds) were the most optimistic group of people. The least optimistic group were those on the sell-side (defined as the firms that market and sell securities – investment banks, basically).
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