Fid
"Fid" is not a standard UK job title, so this guide covers the most likely thing it refers to: a graduate role in FID, short for Fixed Income Division (often written FICC — Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities), the part of an investment bank that deals in bonds, interest rate products, foreign exchange and commodities. Graduates in this area work on a trading floor supporting traders, salespeople or structurers who buy and sell these products for clients such as pension funds, insurers, asset managers, corporates and governments. If you meant something else by "Fid" — for example a fiduciary/trustee role in a trust company, or an internal abbreviation at a particular employer — this guide will not describe it accurately, and it is worth checking the full job title before applying.
Approximate graduate salary
For markets graduate schemes at investment banks, base salaries typically start somewhere around GBP 50,000–60,000, with a discretionary bonus on top that varies hugely by bank and by year. This is an approximation only, is concentrated in London, and would be considerably lower in adjacent roles outside a bank's front office.
What you'd actually do
- Arriving before the market opens (often around 6.30–7am) to read overnight news, check what moved in Asian and European markets, and update pricing sheets or risk reports for the desk you sit on
How graduates get in
- The main route is a summer internship in a bank's markets or sales and trading division, usually taken in the penultimate year of a degree, which for most banks is the primary source of graduate hires
- Direct application to a markets/FICC graduate scheme in the final year — possible at most banks but generally more competitive than converting from an internship
- Spring insight weeks in first year, which are short introductory programmes that often lead to a fast-tracked internship application
- Entry from a related graduate role — for example operations, risk, treasury or middle office — and moving onto the desk internally; this happens but is slower and not guaranteed
- Master's degrees in finance, financial mathematics or similar are common among applicants for quantitative or structuring seats, though a master's is not required for most sales and trading roles
- A small number of people enter from the buy side, brokerages or market-data firms after a couple of years elsewhere; this is a genuine route but less structured
What employers ask for
- A 2:1 or above is the usual expectation, though some employers have moved away from strict degree-class filters — check each application
- Degree subject is fairly open for sales roles; economics, finance, maths, engineering and physics are common, and for quantitative or structuring seats a strong mathematical background is effectively required
- Demonstrable interest in markets — being able to talk sensibly about interest rates, central bank policy or recent bond market moves in an interview matters more than any particular module you studied
- Strong Excel skills, and increasingly some Python; how much coding is expected varies enormously between a flow sales seat and a quantitative desk
- The FCA requires people who deal with clients or make trading decisions to be appropriately certified, so you will complete regulatory training and assessments after joining rather than beforehand
- Professional qualifications such as the CFA are common but usually taken after you start, and are more associated with research and the buy side than with trading itself
Skills that matter
Mental arithmetic and fluency with numbers under time pressure
Prices, spreads and hedge ratios need to be sanity-checked in seconds while someone is waiting on the phone or a chat window.
Understanding how bonds and interest rates actually work
Almost everything on the desk reduces to yields, spreads, duration and discounting, and you cannot follow a conversation without this grounding.
Excel and increasingly Python
Junior work involves building and maintaining pricing tools, running scenario analysis and pulling data quickly when a client asks a question.
Concise verbal communication
Market colour is delivered in a sentence or two on a call or chat; a long explanation is worse than a short one, and getting a price wrong because you were unclear is expensive.
Composure when things go wrong
Trade errors, sudden market moves and system outages happen, and the useful person is the one who flags problems immediately rather than hoping they resolve.
Attention to detail on trade booking and confirmations
A mistyped notional or maturity date creates a real financial and regulatory problem, and juniors are usually the ones checking these.
Where it leads
Graduate programme, typically lasting around a year to eighteen months, often including rotations across several desks before you are placed permanently
Analyst on a specific desk, gradually taking on your own client accounts or a small book of risk, with a rough two-to-three-year span before promotion — though this varies by bank and by how the business is performing
Associate, then Vice President — at this stage you own client relationships or manage meaningful risk, and pay becomes much more closely tied to the revenue you generate
Director and Managing Director for those who stay, running a desk or a client franchise; the number of people who reach this is small and timelines vary widely
Common exits rather than upward moves: to the buy side (asset managers, hedge funds, insurers), to corporate treasury, to a fintech or data provider, or out of markets entirely — leaving after a few years is normal, not a failure
What people get wrong
“It's shouting, hand signals and a chaotic pit.”
Fixed income is overwhelmingly electronic and screen-based. Much of it happens over instant messaging and automated pricing systems, and large parts of the market — particularly government bonds and FX — are heavily automated.
“Fixed income is the boring, low-status alternative to equities.”
FICC is typically one of the largest revenue-generating parts of a bank's markets business, and the products are generally more complex than cash equities. It is often the bigger and more technical side of the floor.
“Trading and sales are basically the same job.”
They are different careers with different skills. Traders manage the bank's risk and price products; salespeople cover clients, explain trade ideas and bring flow to the desk. Structurers design bespoke products. You are usually placed into one of these and moving between them later is not straightforward.
“You need to have traded your own portfolio to be taken seriously.”
A personal share portfolio is largely irrelevant to fixed income, and banks restrict what staff can trade personally anyway. What counts is understanding rates and credit and being able to reason about why a market moved.
Where this varies
Two big caveats. First, the term itself: "FID" is bank shorthand, not a job title you will see advertised in most places, and some employers use "FICC", "Global Markets" or "Rates and Credit" instead — a few use "FID" internally for something else entirely, and a "fiduciary" role in a trust or wealth business is a completely different job involving trust administration and duties to beneficiaries. Check the full title. Second, the work varies enormously by desk: a government bond trading desk is fast, highly automated and quantitative; a credit sales seat is relationship-led and involves far more client conversation; a structuring seat is closer to modelling and product design and can look almost like a quant job. Hours also vary — markets roles usually mean early starts but finish far earlier than investment banking advisory roles, which is a common point of confusion. Nearly all of these jobs in the UK are in London, with a limited presence in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow and Belfast, mostly in technology, operations and risk functions rather than on the desk itself.
General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.