"analyst" covers all entry-level roles. The analysts with total compensation close to the base salary of 50k (e.g. developers) won't work crazy hours. The bankers who do have crazy hours also get bonuses with order of magnitude equal to the base salary.

£50k base for a random IB in London doesn’t sound shockingly low to me. There’s two things there:

1. Pay in general is lower in the UK than the US. The bank will pay what they can get away with and there isn’t enough competition between banks/consultancies/tech/law to drive pay up. I wouldn’t be surprised if more competitive candidates got higher offers.

2. A lot of compensation can be made up in bonuses, though I don’t know what kind of bonus a junior analyst might get.

That's a good point. I have no idea what their actual salaries are. I was responding to the suggestion that £90k a year is just above minimum wage when you adjust for the hours worked (which is false).