Investment Banking Hours: Why They’re Still So Bad, and Why They’re Unlikely to Improve Even with Legal Challenges and AI/Automation

Every few years, I revisit the topic of investment banking hours and why Analysts are still expected to work 70 – 80 hours per week (or more!).

People with limited knowledge of the finance industry always assume that “something” will disrupt this practice:

• 2008 – 2010: The Great Financial Crisis has changed everything! Hours will fall because banks will do fewer deals (didn’t happen; they just pitched more).
• 2015 – 2019: “Protected weekends” will change everything! Finally, junior bankers will get to have a life (didn’t happen; firms just shifted more work onto weekdays).
• 2020 – 2022: COVID, remote work, and tons of SPAC deals made the hours even worse, but that’s just temporary (nope; banks just reduced headcount when deal activity fell).
• 2026: New AI tools will make Analysts more efficient! Also, recent controversies and legal challenges will make banks improve their working conditions (I will predict a “nope” here as well).

The Tech Bros, AI boosters, and paid shills do not understand that investment banking hours are long mostly for cultural reasons.

Client demands and work requirements also contribute, but if banks really wanted to, they could change their policies and reduce everyone’s hours.

But they do not – because doing so would result in very different candidates and a much different culture.

I’ll start with an overview of the traditional explanations for IB hours, explain why they’re unlikely to change anytime soon, and then explain what might change in the distant future:

The Short Version of Investment Banking Hours

• Most Investment Banking Analysts are in the office at least 70 – 80 hours per week; as you move up from Associate to VP to MD, the hours fall to 50 – 60 per week. Some MDs may work slightly less, but I doubt that any senior bankers in developed markets follow a consistent 9-to-5 schedule.
• To put this in concrete terms, “70 – 80 hours per week” means that you’re in the office from 9 AM until 12 AM on weekdays, with some weekend work. By contrast, “50 – 60 hours per week” means that you’re in the office from 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays, with some weekend work and possible travel before/after hours.
• You are not “working” that whole time. You might be in the office, but you’re often waiting around for comments or changes, so bankers tend to exaggerate how much they do in an average day (but to be fair, in busy periods, you could also get stuck at the office for 100+ hours in a single week doing important work).
• The traditional explanation is that the long hours are mostly about clients, culture, and co-working Huge clients pay your bank millions of dollars to advise on deals, so you must do whatever they want. These clients have unpredictable demands, banks can’t easily “divide” work, and senior bankers expect junior bankers to work long hours just like they did.
• To many senior bankers, the hours are a feature, not a bug: They want people who are willing to work long hours because it’s a filtering mechanism. Supply and demand also factor in because IB jobs are still viewed as highly desirable, so banks can reject or fire anyone unwilling to work in these conditions.
• Recent legal challenges, such as Kathryn Shiber’s lawsuit against Centerview, are unlikely to make a difference because these are just individuals targeting specific firms/groups. Collection action (i.e., “unionizing”) is unlikely due to the high turnover and supply/demand dynamics.
• AI and automation tools will lead to individual bankers being pressured into doing more work, or lead to banks hiring fewer people and expecting more from each one. They do not reset cultural expectations or erase urgent requests at 3 AM.
• It is possible for IB hours to improve, but something fundamental about the hiring market or advancement process would have to change. These changes take a long time (decades, not years).

The Traditional Explanations for Long Investment Banking Hours

Traditionally, people have argued that the long hours are due to the huge fees clients pay and the high expectations they create.

If a group advises on 2 large deals in a single year, each worth $5 million in fees, they’re both critical. Saying “no” to a client request might cost the group half its revenue for the year.

But if this group advised on 100 deals for $100K each in fees, it would be much easier to say “no” because losing a single deal would not matter much.

The nature of M&A deals also creates an unpredictable workflow: You do a lot in the beginning to set up the model, CIM, and management presentation, but in the middle of the process, buyers come and go, clients get distracted, and different buyers/investors take different amounts of time to respond.

Traditionally, it has been difficult to “divide the labor” or make bankers work in shifts because senior bankers want individual accountability.

If there’s a quirk in row 371 of the model, the senior banker wants to go to one person who can explain it, not 3 different people who might know bits and pieces.

If you compare the job to being a doctor in an emergency room, it’s easier to “hand off” patients in an ER setting because they rarely stay in the ER for more than a day, and hospitals can store all the relevant information in one place.

This allows for 12-hour shifts, so doctors can “turn off” at the end of the day and hand off their work to the next shift.

But in banking, this is much harder because deals can take months or years to close, and the scope is so broad that it is difficult to “transmit” all the relevant information in one document.

Why Culture Trumps Workflow to Explain Investment Banking Hours

I’ve used the explanations above to explain IB hours in the past, but I’ve never found them 100% convincing.

I believe that culture is the biggest factor for a few reasons:

1. Some boutique banks offer improved hours to Analysts (50 – 60 hours per week) because they minimize pointless work. However, these firms are typically run by established bankers who rely on existing clients, and they do not necessarily offer solid advancement opportunities for new hires.
2. Workflow collaboration tools have improved over time, and it is easier to divide and automate work today. It’s still not as seamless as different shifts in the ER, but it is more viable.
3. Most clients and potential clients do not even read most of the materials that banks produce for deals and pitches. They could easily “hand-wave” certain parts or do things more simply.
4. Finally, bankers may not be able to say “no” to specific client requests, but they can deflect and simplify the final deliverables. This would not turn it into a 40-hour-per-week job, but it might reduce the number of all-nighters and emergencies.

Possible Changes: Legal Challenges and Tragic Deaths

Beyond the Centerview legal case referenced above, there have also been a few investment banker deaths over the years, with some famous cases going back as far as 2013.

Some people argue that these controversies and legal challenges will force banks to change their ways, but I am skeptical.

First, even if a specific banker or group loses a lawsuit, only the individual is held accountable, so there’s little systemic change.

Also, there’s the supply/demand issue discussed above: If banks think that a candidate is likely to cause controversy, they will simply not hire the person (or they’ll fire them early on).

Finally, while some publications have suggested that Wall Street workers might “unionize” and improve hours via collective bargaining, I think this is pure fantasy.

It’s an industry with extremely high turnover, and few people stay in it for more than a few years.

If you compare it to something like airlines and pilots’ unions, pilots have vastly more power because most stay in it for decades, and they have literal life-or-death responsibility over passengers.

Possible Changes: AI Tools and Workflow Automation

If you judge reality based on Twitter / X, everyone is 10x-ing their productivity with AI, running 700 agents at once, starting 85 side businesses, and earning $10 million before noon each day.

The reality is quite different.

While these automation tools can be helpful, they are still just tools, and they all require human supervision, intervention, and review.

So, yes, you can automate parts of pitch books, presentations, and even models, but this also creates a heavier review/editing burden.

Oh, and senior bankers will expect you to do even more because “it’s automated.”

Think about something like Capital IQ, which allows you to look up company financials, export them to Excel, easily create sets of comparable companies, etc.

In theory, that should have been a game-changer for Analyst hours because it automated many tasks previously done manually.

But Capital IQ launched in 1998, and investment banking hours stayed the same or got worse, even as nearly all banks adopted it.

So, unless these tools reach 100% accuracy, interface perfectly with human clients in live settings, and are also cheaper than human Analysts, I don’t see much changing.

What Could Ever Change Investment Banking Hours?

Barring some huge technical breakthrough, one of the following might change the hours:

1. A Fundamental Shift in the Desirability of Investment Banking Jobs – For example, if IB jobs move closer to commercial banking or corporate finance in terms of compensation/exits, the hours would decrease, as senior bankers would have less bargaining power.
2. An End to Traditional Investment Banking – For example, if the industry evolves to the point where it is just deal-making MDs setting up transactions and maintaining relationships, no one would work 80 hours per week.

I suppose these changes are possible, but they will take a long time to emerge. Think: A 2050 or 2060 time frame, not 2030.

What does all this mean for you in the meantime?

I think it mostly goes back to the recent “Is IB Worth It?” article.

Yes, the long hours should factor into your decision, but they don’t last forever, so you should focus on what’s required to get into the industry and the 10-year outlook.

But if you cannot handle being in the office for 12 – 15 hours per day, maybe IB is not for you.

This is a hard requirement for entry-level roles that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

I still tend to believe that, despite all these downsides, IB still beats many alternative paths, at least for initial jobs out of university.

But there are careers with higher potential compensation, others with higher potential stability, and many with far better hours.