Goldman Sachs, the controversial US investment bank, is to open an office in Britain’s second city, Birmingham.
The office is set to open in the third quarter of this year.
The investment bank is infamous for pressuring employees to work insanely long hours, with reports of junior members of the staff suffering burnout after putting in 100-hour working weeks.
According to an internal survey conducted in February, first-year analysts are working more than 95 hours per week and sleeping five hours per night.
Since then, Goldman Sachs has summoned its UK workers back to offices in London this week, adding a bit of commuting time that will bite into the hours available for sleeping.
Goldman Sachs’s engineering division will be the first to have staff in Birmingham.
“We see tremendous opportunity to enhance our UK presence and continue delivering for our global clients,” said Richard Gnodde, the chief executive officer for Goldman Sachs International.
Jo Hannaford, the head of engineering for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Goldman Sachs said Birmingham was chosen because it has “a strong and deep new talent pool, excellent academic institutions, a growing technology sector and longstanding leadership in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] industries".