The bankers looking for new jobs next year aren't where you expect them to be
When we asked the 2,000 financial services professionals in our bonus expectations report whether they would look for a new job in 2026, the answer was a resounding maybe - just like there was for their self-reported job insecurity.
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There was a lot of overlap between those two factors, actually. Insecure bankers were more likely to look for a new job in 2026 than their secure colleagues. The table below shows the percentage of respondents from each bank who intend to do so next year, as well as the number who promised to do the same thing in previous years.
The bankers who said they are most likely to seek new jobs next year are also the most insecure about their current jobs - those at Wells Fargo, at Singaporean bank DBS, and at Standard Chartered.
It’s quite a wide spread of banks, and Wells Fargo is definitely the odd one out, as the others (and the similarly-scoring HSBC cohort) are either based in APAC or APAC-focused. “I feel unsecure and not comfortable with the current situation at my company,” said a Canadian Wells Fargo Associate.
He also said he feared for his job security due to a “fear of retaliation from upper management”. He also noted that he was unhappy with his current lifestyle, as his compensation package meant he has “been able to adjust my expenses according to the market inflation for quite some years.”
By a significant margin, the bankers least likely to seek new jobs are those at Goldman Sachs. “Very happy with the learning and growth in my current role,” said one sales associate for the bank in Asia. “No changes.” He expected his bonus to rise by 80% compared to last year.
There was also less of a correlation between likelihood of looking for a new job in 2026 and the anticipated difficulty in doing so.
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