A low-key electronic market maker bumped pay to $440k

While private firms like Citadel Securities and Jane Street dominate the conversation of electronic market making, publicly traded Marex has been going under the radar. It had its best ever quarter for revenues to close out last year, and bumped up pay in spite of an influx of new hires.

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Marex increased average headcount from 2,334 in 2024 to 2,786 in 2025. It made just under 300 hires in the back office and just over 150 hires in the front. Despite this, 'salaries and wages' per head were up 6.5% to $443k. Jane Street and Citadel Securities, by contrast, each paid over $2m per head to their employees last year.

Various acquisitions made by Marex influenced its growth. Speaking in the firm's earnings call, CFO Rob Irvin said Marex's compensation expense was up due to "higher front-office compensation and the additional headcount following the Winterflood acquisition;" Marex bought the equities market maker for over £100m ($134m) last summer. It also acquired FX services firm Hamilton Court earlier in the year. At the end of the year it had over 3,100 employees. 

Marex made multiple big hires last year. In October it hired senior Jefferies trader Aaron Fernandes to build out an emerging markets credit desk. It hired Darren Williams as its global head of relative value trading in December following a legal battle between him and his former employer JB Drax.

Although Marex pays less than a quarter of some of its rivals, there are benefits to working there. Insiders have told us off the record that Marex "a breath of fresh air" full of ambitious people, and that it operates a "no jerk" rule. 

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