Thelander IF Digest: December 2025
Salary Increases for 2026
Welcome back to the Thelander Compensation Digest. As we wrap up 2025, here is a sneak peek at the results from our Salary Increase & Bonus Survey with PitchBook. Noteworthy is the cost of living increase as a factor for salary increases, which ties directly to market conditions. Find out more below!
The percentage of investment professionals who received a salary increase for 2026 has gone down since last year, but is on par with for 2024. Let’s dig in deeper – out of the six levels of investment professionals – who exactly received a salary increase going into the new year?
Key takeaways:
A similar amount of Sr. Managing Directors / Sr. Partners received a salary increase for 2026 compared to 2025 and 2024, which is around 5% higher than for 2024.
78% or more of Associates and Senior Associates received a salary increase for 2026 – slightly down from “for 2025” but still higher than any other investment professional.
Does AUM Make a Difference in Who Received a Salary Increase?
Key takeaways:
Partners saw minimal AUM driven variation in salary increases.
However, non-partners were more likely to receive a salary increase at firms with less than $1 billion in total AUM – especially for Senior Associates and Associates.
What Went Into the Salary Increase?
Source: Thelander-PitchBook Salary Increase & Bonus Survey
Cost of living gained in importance compared to all other salary increase factors – going from 54% to 68% (+14 percentage points).
What Is The Salary Increase Percentage?
Here are the median salary increase percentages YoY as a percentage of base pay by level.
Source: Thelander-PitchBook Salary Increase & Bonus Survey
The median salary increase percentage held steady for Managing General Partners at 3.5% and 4.3% for Sr. Managing Directors and Sr. Partners.
Junior level talent saw a decrease at the median – going from 7.00% to 4.00% for Senior Associates and 5.00% to 4.50% for Associates.
What’s The Bottom Line?
As we look forward to 2026, larger firms are pulling ahead in hiring plans: 70% of firms with more than $1 billion in total AUM are planning to hire, compared to 62% of firms with less than $500 million in total AUM.
What’s equally telling is the retention story. 2025 saw higher annual retention rates than 2024, driven primarily by decreases in involuntary attrition. In a market where junior talent had smaller raises, retention actually improved – suggesting firms are being strategic about who they want to incentivize to stay.
If you participated in the survey, you can download your complimentary participant report on the Thelander platform here. You can also participate here to secure the December 2025 report. All data is published in aggregate only with no individual names or firm names ever reported.
Click Here to Participate in the Thelander – PitchBook Salary Increase & Bonus Survey Today
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