Friend of mine at a tech scaleup was laid off and given a severance package of 12 weeks pay plus two additional weeks pay for each year of service. I looked around at what banks were offering and it shocked me how much the industry pales in comparison. This wasn’t an industry leading scaleup btw, but a solid mid tier player.
Considering layoffs are a part of life in finance, are there any respected firms that have generous severance arrangements or is getting screwed just part of the deal you make?
The bank industry norm is to be paid for your notice period (usually 3 or 6 months) plus a month per year of service up to a max of 12 years. I think the first £30k is tax and NI free, after that fully taxable.
I have worked with the top tier Banks most of the employees were given a year severance package and staffing firms were notified of the layoff’s to work with the employees to find other opportunities, while management received the option of time being bridged if invited back to the company within a reasonable amount of time meaning around a year and a half with 401K benefits.
Redundancy package from a top-tier asset manager in UK this year (2025) was notice period (3 months) + 2 weeks per year of service, much poorer than expected.