In 2021, a now-infamous internal survey from Goldman Sachs shook the finance world. Junior analysts reported working an average of 95 to 100 hours per week — and sleeping just five hours a night. More than half said they planned to quit within six months if conditions didn’t improve. Their mental and physical health had dropped over six points on a 10-point scale since their first day on the job.
The report went viral. And ever since, “how many hours do investment bankers work?” has become one of the most-searched questions among students seriously considering a career on Wall Street.
The honest answer? It depends — and it depends a lot more than most people realize. In this post, we’re going to break down the real data on investment banking hours: what a typical weekday and weekend look like, how hours vary by bank and group, whether the pay actually makes it worth it, and what you should know before committing to this career path.
This post is based on our YouTube video, Do investment bankers really work 100 hours a week?, which you can watch at the end of this article. If you’re serious about breaking into investment banking, you can also apply to work with our coaching team — we’ve helped over 2,100 students land offers at top banks.
The Goldman Survey: What Really Happened?
Let’s start with the survey that started the conversation.
In early 2021, a group of Goldman Sachs first-year analysts compiled and circulated an internal survey detailing their working conditions. The results were striking:
- Average weekly hours: 95 to 100
- Average nightly sleep: 5 hours
- Average physical health score decline since joining: 25%
- Average mental health score decline: 35%
- Percentage planning to leave within six months if nothing changes: over 50%
Goldman’s leadership responded with pledges to protect “protected Saturdays” — analysts would theoretically get at least one full day off per week. But the reaction from the broader finance world was mixed. Many senior bankers dismissed the survey as overblown. Others saw it as a long-overdue wake-up call.
So what’s the actual reality? Is Goldman typical — or an extreme case?
The Real Distribution of Investment Banking Hours
Here’s something most articles get wrong: they treat investment banking hours as a single number. “100 hours a week.” “80 hours a week.” The truth is that hours follow a distribution curve — and where you land on that curve depends on your bank, group, deal cycle, and seniority.
At the low end, analysts at regional boutique banks or in slower groups might work 60 to 70 hours per week during quiet periods. At the high end — at elite boutiques or bulge bracket banks during active deal cycles — analysts can absolutely hit 100-plus hours. A realistic picture for the average analyst at a major bank:
- Slow period: 70 to 80 hours per week
- Normal period: 80 to 90 hours per week
- Live deal / deal crunch: 90 to 110+ hours per week
The median experience is probably closer to 80 to 85 hours per week over the course of a full year — which is still intense, but meaningfully different from the 100-hour horror story most people envision.
It’s also worth noting that hours have generally improved at many banks since 2021, partly due to post-pandemic recruiting competition and partly because firms have implemented formal analyst wellness policies. Whether those policies are consistently honored is another matter.
What a Typical Investment Banking Weekday Looks Like
Most investment banking analysts arrive at the office between 9 and 10 AM. Don’t be fooled — the workday doesn’t end until midnight or later on many nights. A typical weekday breakdown might look like:
- 9:00 AM — 12:00 PM: Morning tasks — emails, model updates, responding to requests from VPs and MDs
- 12:00 — 1:00 PM: Lunch (often eaten at the desk)
- 1:00 — 6:00 PM: Deep work — financial modeling, pitch book preparation, research and analysis
- 6:00 — 8:00 PM: The “second wave” — revised deliverables and new requests from senior bankers after client calls
- 8:00 PM — midnight or later: Final revisions, slide formatting, printing decks for the following morning
The most common complaint among analysts isn’t the total hours — it’s the unpredictability. You might think you’re leaving at 10 PM, then get a comment from an MD at 9:45 that requires two more hours of work. That constant on-call status wears on people over time.
To understand what occupies those long days, our posts on how to walk through a DCF and how to calculate WACC give you a sense of the technical complexity analysts handle daily.
Weekend Hours: Are Your Weekends Really Gone?
This is where the Goldman survey hits closest to home: weekends.
On a normal week at a major bank, analysts can expect to work at least part of their weekend. The question is how much.
- Saturday: Most analysts work at least a few hours — responding to emails, making model revisions, or cleaning up slides from the week
- Sunday: Lighter than Saturday, but many analysts still log in for a few hours to prepare for Monday morning
Full weekend days off — where you genuinely don’t open your laptop — are rare during busy periods. “Protected Saturdays” at Goldman and similar policies elsewhere have helped, but they’re not always honored when there’s a live deal.
Some groups are notoriously worse than others. Restructuring, M&A, and leveraged finance groups tend to have the most intense hours. Industry coverage groups and equity capital markets can be more predictable and manageable.
How Investment Banking Hours Vary by Bank, Group, and Geography
Not all investment banking jobs are created equal. Hours can vary dramatically based on where you work.
By Bank Type
- Bulge brackets (Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley): Typically 80 to 100+ hours per week. High prestige, high intensity.
- Elite boutiques (Evercore, Lazard, Moelis, Centerview): Often comparable to or even longer than bulge brackets. The advisory-only model means analysts are always in deal mode.
- Middle market banks: Generally 70 to 85 hours per week. Better work-life balance, with less exit opportunity brand recognition.
- Regional boutiques: Can be 60 to 75 hours in many cases. More manageable, but deal flow and brand prestige are more limited.
By Group
- M&A / Restructuring: Worst hours, highest prestige for exit opportunities
- Leveraged Finance: Intense, especially during deal execution windows
- Industry Coverage (TMT, Healthcare, Energy): Variable — depends heavily on deal flow
- Equity Capital Markets (ECM): More market-hours driven, often better work-life balance
By Geography
London tends to have slightly better work-life balance than New York, partly due to European labor norms and regulatory requirements. Our post on investment banking in London breaks down what makes the UK market unique and how it differs from the American experience.
The Sacrifices — and Why People Still Do It
Working 80 to 100 hours a week means making real sacrifices. Social life is severely limited in the first year. Sleep deprivation is common. Health and fitness often take a backseat. Relationships — romantic and platonic — can suffer. Hobbies and outside interests are largely put on hold.
So why do thousands of students compete fiercely for these jobs every single year?
The answer comes down to three things: compensation, exit opportunities, and career acceleration.
Compensation: First-year analysts at bulge bracket banks typically earn $110,000 to $130,000 in base salary, with bonuses bringing total compensation to $160,000 to $200,000 or more. That’s an extraordinary starting package for someone in their early 20s — and it compounds dramatically with seniority.
Exit opportunities: Investment banking is one of the most powerful launching pads in all of finance. Two to three years as a banking analyst opens doors to private equity, hedge funds, corporate development, venture capital, and top MBA programs. The resume credential is nearly unmatched.
Career acceleration: The skills you develop in two years of banking — financial modeling, valuation, deal execution, client communication — take many professionals a decade to build elsewhere. You’re compressing your learning curve dramatically.
Check out our WSMM track record to see the kinds of outcomes our students achieve, and explore our free resources to start building the skills you’ll need.
Is Investment Banking Pay Worth the Hours?
This is the question everyone asks, and the answer depends on how you frame it.
If you break down first-year analyst compensation on a purely hourly basis — say, $180,000 total comp divided by roughly 4,500 hours worked per year — you get an effective hourly rate of about $40. That’s not particularly impressive in isolation.
But that framing misses the point entirely. The value of investment banking isn’t the hourly wage — it’s the optionality you’re buying.
Consider: an average college graduate earns $55,000 to $65,000 per year in their first job. A banking analyst earns two to three times that in year one, and is positioned for significantly higher earnings in years two, three, and beyond — whether they stay in banking or transition to a high-compensation buyside role. Over a five-year horizon, the earnings differential between a banker and a typical college graduate is often $500,000 or more — even accounting for the brutal hours in years one and two.
More importantly, the skills and network you build are rare and genuinely transferable. That’s why top MBA programs actively recruit former bankers, and why private equity funds rely almost exclusively on banking alumni for their analyst pipelines.
If you’re still weighing whether investment banking is the right path, our See How We Coach page explains how we help students think through these decisions with the right data and perspective.
How to Survive (and Thrive) in Investment Banking
If you’ve decided investment banking is the right move, here are practical strategies for managing the lifestyle:
- Protect your sleep aggressively. Even five to six hours of quality sleep matters enormously for cognitive performance. Eliminate time waste at night — don’t scroll social media when you could be resting.
- Build efficiency into your work. Create Excel models that are clean, fast, and reusable. Build slide templates you can update quickly. Analysts who appear to have better hours are often just faster and more organized.
- Invest in relationships, not just deliverables. Senior bankers notice analysts who take the time to understand the business, not just format slides. Those relationships determine deal staffing, bonus sizing, and promotion speed.
- Use your two years strategically. Know what you want to do afterward and start building toward it early. If private equity is the goal, meet with headhunters in your first few months. If you want to stay in banking, signal it clearly.
- Stay sharp on technical skills. Use our technical cheatsheet to stay current on valuation concepts and be ready when senior bankers quiz you in front of clients.
For students still in the recruiting process, our networking guide will help you build the relationships that lead to interviews. Our post on the investment banking networking timeline shows you exactly when to start reaching out for maximum impact.
Watch the Full Video
For a deeper breakdown of investment banking hours — including the exact data from the Goldman survey, a realistic distribution curve of analyst hours, and a candid discussion of whether the pay is worth it — watch this video from Wall Street Mastermind:
Want Personalized Investment Banking Coaching?
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Whether you’re at a target school, a non-target, or coming from a non-traditional background, we can help you build a strategy that works. Apply to work with us today and take the first step toward your investment banking career. You can also read our Trustpilot reviews and student success stories to see what our students have achieved.
