The start of the year is usually a good time to check how much you are getting paid, versus your peers as a private banker or private client investment manager.

Usually, you have to go cap in hand to your HR people to try and get an idea of firm-wide compensation. Even if you got the data, it would be flawed at best, being based just on one company or information supplied by other HR departments – and good luck with that!

So I have delved into a penetrating salary be...