As the latest series of acclaimed TV drama Industry returns to screens with much fanfare, eagle-eyed viewers might have spotted a cameo in episode two from what appears to be the Guardian’s business blog.
While the headline on the mocked-up webpage is fictional – like everything in this account of the drug- and sex-fuelled lives of young City workers – it shows an attention to detail and appearance of authenticity that has helped turn the BBC One show into a sleeper hit.
Since its debut in 2020 it has purported to depict the “unrelenting world of high finance”, drawing on the experiences of its writers Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, who both had stints working for big financial firms, to tell the high-stakes stories of the employees of the fictional investment bank Pierpoint & Co.
But as the third series airs, and with a fourth already confirmed in production, just how realistic do those who have worked in the sector think it is?
One former investment banker said that while he recognised some of the bedhopping from his early years working for a big European investment bank in Canary Wharf in the early 2000s, “things have changed dramatically” since then.
After the 2008 financial crisis, compliance became paramount and banks clamped down on any erratic behaviour, he said. “The environment became very, very strict … especially if you are senior, you have everything to lose if you get yourself into some sort of relationship with somebody who works there,” he said, referring to short-term affairs. “Legitimate” relationships had to be declared to the HR department.
The characters’ fondness for drugtaking did not chime with his experiences. “I didn’t see much of that happening around me when I was in banking,” he said. “I mean in the late 90s and early 2000s I heard the odd story, and maybe it happens more in outfits like brokerage houses, where they do lots of entertaining of clients, where the governance is not as strict.”
Ultimately he thought the bosses’ reaction to the wild antics of staff seemed unduly lenient. In the past 15 years, banking had “become a lot stricter than many other industries, and people just felt like [they were] being watched and observed. And you’re not allowed to make any mistake.” Consequences ranged from warnings and disciplinary hearings to having a bonus halved or scrapped, and ultimately to being dismissed.
One aspect he did find believable was the long hours characters struggled with. He said people working on deals and on trading floors put in at least 12 hours a day. In his role he would leave home at 6.30am every day and was usually back home at 8.30pm or 9pm. Sometimes he and others worked weekends, for example if a client calls on a Friday evening and wants to announce the issuing of a new bond before markets open on Monday, “everybody has to spend the weekend working non-stop”.
Another former investment banker who worked at an elite boutique investment firm said sex among office workers “definitely happened a few times whilst I was there, it used to be a lot with the assistants but nowadays it’s the new recruits with each other”.
In terms of bad behaviour, he recalled attending a nightclub with people from a leading US investment bank who “ran up a £10k bill before leaving, and never offered to pay or resolve their bill. The attitude was always that they were untouchable.”
He said drugs were far more prevalent on the investment banking side where people worked particularly long hours, while traders were “far more tame and regulated”. He was unimpressed with the writers’ fondness for jargon, much imitated by fans, saying that a lot of the dialogue seemed to be “buzz words to sound clever”. One example that stood out was a discussion about tech companies where the estimate for the valuation of a “unicorn” was well out.
“But besides that most of the situations never would have happened because the person would have just been fired,” he said. “That’s the part that’s missing from the show. The complete replaceability of everyone. If you turned up late for a week or two they’d just stop giving you good work, ostracise you, put you on long demeaning tasks until you cracked. And then they’d replace you.”
A City investment manager still working in London was even less impressed, telling the Guardian he had watched a few of the first episodes but found the drama “unrealistic, dull and full of bland stereotypes”. For a more realistic picture of the sector, he recommended watching Margin Call instead – a 2011 film set in a fictional investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.
As for sex and drugs in the workplace, he said he had never come across any. “I mean you can guess some people who might do coke at dinner parties but it’s not a cultural thing in brokering or the buy side.”
