Could somebody please tell me about investment banking?

- What would I have to study in uni?
- How hard is it to get a good job in London?
Thanks!

So I am at that stage of life where I need to seriously consider what I want to do in university as I will spend the whole of this summer working towards it. Could somebody please summarise what investment banking is about and answer the following questions:
- What are the hours like?
- How stressful is it?
- What would I have to study in uni?
- How hard is it to get a good job in London?
Thanks!

I'll give you a quick intro of what you need to know.
1) There are different roles in investment banking. The only roles that pay good money are called front office roles. The front office roles are:
- Investment Banking Division: they do mergers, acqs, raise capital through debt and IPOs. This is what most people talk about when they say banking but it's not necessarily the best division for everyone, depending on your preferences.
- Sales and Trading (S&T): these guys are involved in providing clients like fund managers info about the secondary markets- salespeople basically inform clients about the market for a financial product and the traders execute transactions. Traders have to do a bunch of stuff in order to do this (none of these jobs are as simple as I'm describing them).
- Research- these guys research what's going on in a market and come up with buy, sell and hold recommendations, which ultimately bring in business to the firm's traders from their clients. There is equity research (industries like tech, healthcare, mining etc) and FICC research (fixed income, currencies, commodities).

2) in terms of hours, M&A (these guys do deals between companies basically) work the longest- usually putting in 80 hours a week and sometimes doing 100 hours a week during busy times. The other IBD people also work long hours although shorter than M&A afaik. Of course, there's also industry coverage groups which do all the different types of deals but on only one industry- their hours fluctuate more depending on the type of deal.

Researchers, traders and salesmen work fewer hours than IBD- usually 55-65 hours. Exotic derivatives traders work a bit more. Basically, everyone's hours in S&T are determined by the market opening times and a bit of extra hours to formulate ideas and strategies and whatnot.

3) They are all stressful but in different ways. IBD people are stressed because of long hours. Traders get stressed when they don't make a loss. Salesmen get stressed when they can't bring in enough sales. Researchers get stressed when they make a buy recommendation and the stock falls.

4) It doesn't matter what you study at all except for certain trading jobs where a more mathematical degree is preferred. Also, apparently economics and finance-related degrees are preferred for FICC research jobs, although you can still get in without one. Overall, aim to go to a target university (Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Imperial, Warwick)- banks get 80% of their hires from these unis.

5) Extremely hard. Front office investment banking is probably the most competitive field to get into in the world. You will need excellent extracurriculars and apply early in your first year of university for Spring week internships and then convert these into summer internships and then convert these into full time positions or apply to summer internships and face a gruelling series of interviews and accessment centres.

I'm amazed at why you try soo hard when the info is easily accessible lmao.

Edit: you forgot asset management and private wealth management/private banking for FO.

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The only roles that pay good money are called front office roles.