Top Investment Banks by Tier

30 investment banks grouped the way recruiting actually treats them — bulge bracket, elite boutique, in-between-a-bank, and middle market. For the 18 largest we also counted how many analysts each one employs and which schools they come from: 64,153 people holding investment banking analyst titles from the graduating classes of roughly 2015 onward. J.P. Morgan runs the biggest program at 9,048. Data pulled 2026-08-25.

Every bank below with a measured analyst population links to its own page ranking the schools it hires from.

Banks by analyst headcount

The 18 banks we measure, largest program first, with the single school each one hires from most. Every row opens that bank’s full feeder-school ranking.

Bulge Bracket

The global full-service franchises. They have the largest analyst classes and the most structured recruiting — on-cycle timelines, school teams, and formal diversity programs — so staying on top of the process matters most.

Elite Boutiques

Advisory-only firms competing with the bulge brackets on M&A and restructuring, usually at higher analyst pay. Tiny classes mean every seat is networked for — expect deeper technicals and less structured processes.

In-Between-a-Banks

Balance-sheet banks whose top groups compete at the bulge-bracket level while the broader platform recruits like middle market. Group selection matters more here than anywhere else — target the flagship teams.

Middle Market

Deals are smaller and teams are leaner, so analysts get responsibility earlier. Exits to megafund PE are rarer, but reps-per-analyst are often better — and for lateral or off-cycle recruiting these firms are the most accessible on this page.

Frequently asked questions

What are the bulge bracket investment banks?

The bulge brackets are the global full-service franchises: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citi, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, UBS. They run the largest analyst classes — J.P. Morgan alone shows 9,048 people holding investment banking analyst titles from the classes of roughly 2015 onward — and the most structured on-cycle recruiting.

What is the difference between a bulge bracket and an elite boutique?

Bulge brackets are full-service: they lend, underwrite, trade, and advise, across every product and region. Elite boutiques advise only, so they take no balance-sheet risk and run far smaller analyst classes. The practical difference for recruiting is scale and odds: a bulge bracket may hire ten times as many analysts, while a boutique gives each analyst more deal exposure and typically pays at or above the bulge bracket.

Which investment bank hires the most analysts?

Of the 18 banks we measure, J.P. Morgan has the largest analyst population at 9,048 from the classes of roughly 2015 onward, and its largest single feeder school is Columbia University. Across all 18 banks we count 64,153 analysts.

Do I need to go to a target school to get into these banks?

It helps, but no school has a monopoly: no single school supplies more than about 7% of any one bank’s analysts. Each bank page here ranks the schools it actually hires from, so you can see how concentrated a given bank’s pipeline really is before deciding how hard to network into it.

Where these numbers come from

Analyst counts are people whose public professional profile lists that bank, an investment banking analyst title, and a graduation year of 2013 or later — the analyst classes of roughly 2015 onward — via People Data Labs, deduplicated per bank. Those conditions apply to the profile, not to a single job: the source flattens employment history, so we cannot confirm the analyst title was held at that bank rather than elsewhere in the same career. Counts are also floors, since the source covers a subset of LinkedIn and bankers who list themselves as just “Analyst” never enter them. The effect is largest for banks with big non-advisory workforces — Wells Fargo above all. Tiers reflect common US recruiting consensus as of mid-2026; group-level strength varies more than any list can capture, so when in doubt pick the stronger group over the shinier logo.

See which schools place the most analysts into these banks →

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