2026 UK salary guide
What forex and prop trading roles pay
A benchmark for hiring companies setting a budget and candidates weighing an offer, across all ten of the functions we recruit for.
Compliance & Legal
Compliance Officer
$70,000 - $115,000
Compliance Manager / MLRO
$95,000 - $205,000
MLRO pay varies significantly with firm size and AUM
Chief Compliance Officer
$205,000 - $405,000+
plus bonus in most FCA-regulated firms
Risk Management
Risk Analyst
$55,000 - $75,000
Risk Manager
$75,000 - $130,000
London roles average toward the top of this range
Head of Risk
$135,000+
Executive & Senior Appointments
COO, fintech scale-up
$205,000 - $475,000+
often equity-weighted
COO, established financial institution
$340,000 - $945,000
IT & Platform Development
Backend / Platform Engineer
$75,000 - $108,000
Senior / Staff Engineer
$108,000 - $155,000+
low-latency and trading-infrastructure specialists sit at the top of this band
Analytics & BI
Data / BI Analyst
$40,000 - $65,000
financial services typically pays 20-30% above the general UK market for this role
Senior Analyst
$60,000 - $90,000
Marketing & Growth
Performance Marketing Manager
$60,000 - $80,000
Senior Performance Marketing Manager
$80,000 - $95,000
Commercial & Business Development
Business Development Manager
$60,000 - $90,000 base
financial-services BDM pay is often heavily commission-weighted on top of base
Senior BDM / Partnerships Lead
$95,000 - $135,000+ base
Operations & Payments
Operations Manager
$60,000 - $95,000
Payments Manager
$105,000+
specialist payments-focused roles command a premium over general operations
Customer Support
Customer Service Team Leader
$45,000 - $60,000
Customer Support / Success Lead
$65,000 - $80,000
How these figures are put together
These are UK market benchmarks compiled from public 2026 salary data (Glassdoor UK, PayScale, Morgan McKinley, Robert Walters, Barclay Simpson and comparable recruitment salary guides) for the closest equivalent roles to each sector we recruit for, not PipTalent's own placement data, since we don't publish individual deal terms. Figures were originally compiled in GBP, then converted to USD at approximately £1 = $1.35 (the prevailing rate as of August 2026) for a global audience, particularly clients in the UAE and wider Gulf region. These remain UK salary figures shown in USD, not US or UAE market data. Ranges are rounded to sensible bands and reflect UK-wide pay, with a London premium where the underlying data showed one clearly. Actual offers vary with firm size, seniority, jurisdiction and whether the role sits at a forex broker or a proprietary trading firm specifically. Talk to us for a read on a specific role.
Hiring, or thinking about a move?
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