Oh mate don't get me wrong, an average-to-mediocre senior business analyst in a tier one bank (and a BA job is the "have no maths skills but had to work in finance for appearances sake") are on around £600 a day. No training, sure, maybe a week's notice with no redundancy, true, but £600 a day for "process optimisation"? Give it a rest.
However, what these people DO have is 1. a brass neck so solid that they are prepared to demand this rate 2. Just enough to get by 3. A business willing to pay it
It's an interesting one though. To be a decent level of Investment Fund Manager (£120k + and decent bonuses) in a non-start up you'd probably need to get to CFA4 as a minimum. There are very, very, very few people in the country who would have the capabilities for taking that exam. It's brutal, and fail it and it is your career at a roadblock at early 30s, possibly a loss of your job too.
My general point here is that the bus drivers have (belatedly) looked at their T&Cs and wages and rightly said "hang on, we're getting ripped off here" or "we are worth more" and rightly gone and sought a pay rise. The other groups like the BAs cottoned on to this approach a lot quicker and a lot earlier "oh, our bank makes billions in profit every year, if something I change saves £tens of millions a year I'm going to ask for more money in my own pocket". And that's the grand hypocrisy of your City commuter; they've hard bargained for their own money for years but when a bus / train driver does it and inconvenieces them, it is letters to the local rag and indignant twitter rants.
