Quant Trading/Researcher salaries 2026: what the postings actually say
Updated 02 August 2026 · 2,026 disclosed bands · 112 firms
Most quant salary figures online are self-reported or estimated. These are not. Every number below comes from a band an employer published in its own job posting, read directly from 252 firms' careers systems and re-checked twice a day.
Median advertised base by role
United States, USD, currently open roles. Half of postings sit between the 25th and 75th percentile columns.
| Role family | Postings | Firms | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Science & ML | 77 | 27 | 200 000 | 232 500 | 262 188 |
| Quantitative Research | 142 | 38 | 175 000 | 212 500 | 249 375 |
| Quantitative Developer | 43 | 24 | 175 000 | 205 000 | 212 500 |
| Software Engineering | 371 | 62 | 168 750 | 200 000 | 212 500 |
| Structuring & Sales | 37 | 19 | 140 000 | 184 142 | 212 500 |
| Trading | 216 | 55 | 140 000 | 177 900 | 210 000 |
| Risk | 56 | 29 | 141 500 | 175 000 | 202 812 |
| Portfolio Management | 28 | 14 | 143 438 | 175 000 | 213 825 |
| Other quantitative | 42 | 23 | 126 175 | 167 500 | 175 000 |
| Actuarial & Underwriting | 60 | 6 | 120 750 | 154 350 | 177 050 |
These are base salaries, not total compensation. Advertised bands almost never include bonus, and in this industry the bonus is not a rounding error — for trading and research seats it routinely exceeds base. Read the table as the floor of an offer, not its size.
Why nearly all of this data is American
86% of the disclosed bands come from US postings — not because US firms pay more attention to transparency by temperament, but because law compels them.
Pay-transparency statutes in New York City, California, Colorado and Washington require a salary range in the advertisement itself. No equivalent obligation binds employers in the UK, the EU, Hong Kong or Singapore, and in practice they seldom volunteer one. The consequence is visible in the corpus: of 8,048 live roles we track, only 2,043 (25%) state a band at all.
What exists elsewhere, shown only where at least five postings support it:
| Market | Postings | Currency | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 1072 | USD | 192 500 |
| Singapore | 16 | USD | 150 000 |
| Hong Kong | 14 | USD | 150 000 |
| Canada | 10 | USD | 118 950 |
| Canada | 7 | CAD | 144 250 |
| United Kingdom | 5 | GBP | 150 000 |
Method
Roles are classified from the job title, each posting contributes the midpoint of its advertised band, cells under five postings are dropped, and non-annual rates are excluded — 1,233 of 2,026 disclosed bands, open roles on 02 August 2026.
Firm-by-firm hiring analysis
What individual firms are hiring for right now, and what the pattern says about where each is heading — read from their own postings, with every claim linked to the roles it rests on.
Jane Street · Optiver · Tower Research Capital
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Where this comes from
Quantfinance.work reads the careers systems of around three hundred banks, hedge funds, reinsurers, prop shops and headhunters at source, twice a day. The same data powers per-firm hiring analysis and CV-matched role scoring inside the app — five-day free trial, no card.