Investment Management Analyst

An investment management analyst helps decide where client money gets invested and keeps track of how those investments are performing. You research companies, funds, bonds or other assets, build and maintain spreadsheets and models, and produce the analysis and reporting that portfolio managers and client-facing advisers rely on. The clients are usually pension schemes, charities, insurers, wealthy individuals or retail investors buying funds.

Starting salary: £28k–£45k
Live graduate jobs: 2 open now
Main way in: Structured graduate schemes at asset managers, wealth managers…
They usually ask for: A 2:1 is the usual bar at larger firms, with some asking for a…

Approximate graduate salary

Typically somewhere around £28,000–£45,000 to start, and this varies a great deal - large London asset managers and structured graduate schemes sit at the upper end and often add a bonus plus exam sponsorship, while regional wealth managers, smaller boutiques and operations-adjacent analyst roles commonly start lower.

What you'd actually do

Reading company results, broker research and economic data, then summarising what matters into a short note or slide for the investment team's morning or weekly meeting
Updating financial models and spreadsheets - earnings forecasts for a company, valuation comparisons across a sector, or performance and risk figures for a fund
Running performance and attribution reporting: working out how a portfolio did over the month and, more importantly, which holdings or decisions drove the result
Doing fund or manager research if the firm invests in other people's funds - screening databases, comparing track records, writing up a recommendation

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Preparing materials for client meetings and review packs, then sometimes sitting in on those meetings to take notes and pick up follow-up actions
Checking portfolios against mandate rules and risk limits (what a client has permitted the firm to hold) and flagging anything that's drifted out of line
Answering internal queries and chasing data - a surprising amount of time goes on reconciling figures from different systems so the numbers in a report actually agree

How graduates get in

Structured graduate schemes at asset managers, wealth managers and investment consultancies - the most common route, usually with autumn applications a year ahead, online tests, a video interview and an assessment centre. Competition is heavy and schemes are small.
Summer internships or spring weeks in the penultimate or first year of a degree - at larger firms this is the dominant feeder into the graduate scheme, so applying for an internship is often more realistic than applying cold for a graduate job.
Direct entry into a non-scheme analyst or investment support role, which is very common at smaller boutiques, regional wealth managers and private client firms that don't run formal programmes. These are advertised year-round and are often an easier first door.
Moving across from an adjacent function - fund operations, performance measurement, investment administration, fund accounting or a platform/custody role - after a year or two. This is a well-worn route and often overlooked by graduates fixated on front-office schemes.

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Via accountancy or audit of financial services clients, or via actuarial work, then moving into investment research or manager selection. Less common straight out of university but realistic in the first few years.
Investment consulting firms (advising pension schemes on how to invest) hire graduates in volume and are a good, slightly less crowded entry point into the same world.

What employers ask for

A 2:1 is the usual bar at larger firms, with some asking for a 2:1 and strong A-levels including maths. Smaller firms are often more flexible and weigh experience and genuine market interest more heavily.
Degree subject matters less than people assume. Economics, finance, maths and accounting are common, but history, engineering, physics and languages graduates get in regularly. What's non-negotiable is being comfortable with numbers and able to show it.
Evidence of real interest in markets - a personal investing record, an investment society, a stock pitch competition, following a sector properly. Interviewers almost always ask what you'd invest in and why, and a vague answer is fatal.
Professional exams are expected rather than optional. Most firms sponsor either the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst, three levels, usually taken over several years) or CISI qualifications such as the Investment Advice Diploma; some wealth managers prefer the CII route if the role touches financial planning. Which one you sit depends entirely on the employer and the type of client work.

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Solid Excel. You don't need to be a modelling expert on day one, but you will be tested on it, and weak Excel shows up fast.
Regulated roles require approval under the FCA's regime, which in practice means passing background and fitness checks - not an obstacle for most graduates, but it's why employers care about honesty on applications.

Skills that matter

Financial modelling and spreadsheet discipline

Most of your output is a model or a reconciled set of figures, and a single broken formula can send a wrong number into a client report.

Writing short, decision-useful summaries

Portfolio managers want half a page on why a company's results changed the investment case, not a three-page essay restating the press release.

Scepticism about data

Performance figures, index data and fund factsheets frequently disagree, and the analyst is the person expected to notice and work out which source is right.

Understanding valuation and basic accounting

You need to read a set of accounts and judge whether earnings are real and what a reasonable price for the asset looks like.

Working to hard reporting deadlines

Month-end and quarter-end reporting cycles are immovable, and client packs go out whether or not the data arrived on time.

Explaining investment ideas out loud

Ideas are argued in meetings, so being able to defend a view under challenge from people more experienced than you is how you get taken seriously.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Analyst for roughly the first two to four years, usually while sitting CFA or CISI exams. Early on you support others' decisions rather than making your own.
Senior or investment analyst, where you own coverage of a sector, a group of funds or a set of portfolios and your recommendations carry real weight.
A fork in the road: assistant portfolio manager / portfolio manager (running money), or a client-facing route such as investment manager at a wealth firm, investment consultant, or product and distribution specialist. Which fork is available depends heavily on the firm's structure.
Portfolio manager, fund manager or senior consultant with direct responsibility for investment decisions or client relationships. Timelines here vary enormously - some reach this in their late twenties at a small firm, others take well over a decade at a large one, and plenty never do because the number of seats is limited.
Common sideways moves that are not failures: risk, investment strategy, ESG and stewardship, research sales, hedge funds, private markets, or an in-house investment team at a pension scheme, charity or family office.

What people get wrong

“You'll be picking stocks and running money within a couple of years.”

Junior analysts mostly produce the inputs - models, data, reporting, write-ups - that other people use to decide. Getting your own investment discretion typically takes years, and at many firms the decisions are made by a committee rather than any individual.

“It's the same job as investment banking, with the same hours.”

They're different industries. Investment management invests money for clients over months and years; banking advises on deals. Hours in investment management are usually far more civilised - long by normal standards at peak reporting periods, but nothing like deal-cycle banking.

“You need an economics or finance degree.”

Numeracy and demonstrable market interest matter far more than the subject on your certificate. Firms hire plenty of non-finance graduates and teach the finance; they can't teach someone to care about markets.

“It's all glamorous research and big investment calls.”

A large share of the work is data checking, reconciliations, performance reporting and formatting client packs. Analysts who are careless with the unglamorous parts don't get trusted with the interesting parts.

Where this varies

The job title covers quite different work depending on where you land. At a large asset manager you may specialise narrowly - one sector, one asset class, or purely performance and risk analytics - and rarely meet a client. At a private client wealth manager you'll cover whole portfolios, deal with more administration and have client contact much sooner, often alongside financial-planning-flavoured exams. At an investment consultancy the work is researching and rating other firms' funds and advising pension trustees, which is more writing and client-meeting heavy. Passive and index-tracking houses skew the role towards quantitative and data work rather than company research. Geographically, London dominates, but Edinburgh is a major centre for fund management, with significant clusters in Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham, particularly in wealth management and consulting.

See all 2 live Investment Management Analyst jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

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.