Here's how long it takes to earn a £400,000 bonus at a top tier bank in London
And not everyone ends up with a £13 million ($20 million) annual pay packet like Europe's highest earning banker.
But data from Emolument shows that people who stick at their career do far better in the end compared to their more junior peers.
Emolument collected data from 4,572 front-office bankers at both top tier and second tier firms over 12 months.
The front office is where the revenue for the bank is generated, through sales, trading and deal-making for corporate clients.
The top tier firms are defined as the nine highest paying banks. They have the biggest and most profitable front offices - think places such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. The second tier is made up of the next 11, and the list includes HSBC, BNP Paribas and Lazard.
Here's how bonuses differ for the two tiers over time:
Although all paths are slightly different, it usually takes between three to four years to get a promotion in banking.
It's a long slog to managing director and an average £400,000 bonus payday, about 15-20 years normally, but with London house prices still sky rocketing, it might be worth it.
The salaries don't tend to diverge that much between the top and second tier banks, and increase at a more gentle rate over the course of a career in banking.
Here's the salary chart from Emolument:
