2025 European fintech compensation report: Product and engineering leaders at privately-held companies

Heidrick & Struggles’ survey of European fintech product and engineering leaders analyzes compensation by ownership, revenue scale, region, and the growing impact of AI on talent demand.

January 14, 2026

2m to read

Guy Shaul ,

Samy Ismaiel

Compensation for product and engineering talent in European fintech remains highly competitive, shaped by company ownership, revenue scale, and regional dynamics.

Expert insights from the fintech sector point to AI as a major driver of future talent demand. As AI accelerates product development, operational efficiency, and competitive differentiation, demand for high-skill product and engineering professionals—especially those who can build, integrate, or govern AI systems—is set to intensify. This demand will likely be amplified by competition from AI-native companies, which are offering increasingly attractive compensation packages to top talent.

As a result, fintech companies seeking to attract candidates with strong AI experience may face growing expectations to match or approach those packages. Together, these dynamics are likely to place continued upward pressure on compensation in the years ahead, with a particular emphasis on AI experience.

Respondents almost universally reported receiving a cash base salary. Eighty percent also received equity, options, or tokens, and nearly two-thirds earned a cash bonus. As expected, cash bonuses became more common as annual company revenue increased.

Overall, European product and engineering professionals in fintech earned an average cash base of €287,000 plus an average cash bonus of €101,000. They also expect average upside potential for equity, options, or tokens ranging from €1,286,000 to €4,023,000.

UK respondents generally earned higher base salaries, but respondents from other European countries reported higher cash bonuses, resulting in similar total cash compensation. Respondents working for PE-backed companies expected higher upside potential from equity, options, or tokens than those at companies with other ownership structures. While this is somewhat surprising, it may reflect the fact that executives at PE-backed companies tend to have a clearer sense of how to value their equity relative to candidates from VC-backed companies, particularly since the 2022 market correction.

Types of compensation received

Average compensation

Expected upside potential range

By country

By company size

Most survey respondents report directly to the CEO. More than half work for companies generating over $50 million in annual revenue, though the largest group of respondents is at firms earning $10–49 million. Ownership is evenly split between private equity and venture capital firms, with a smaller share at founder-owned companies; executives at public companies were not surveyed.

Respondents are concentrated in payments, spending, and embedded finance, with significant representation in lending/BNPL and cryptocurrency, blockchain, or other Web3 sectors.

Slightly more than half of respondents are engineering leaders, nearly one-third hold product leadership roles, and the remaining 16% hold dual leadership roles, overseeing both product and engineering. We are seeing these dual-function positions become less common as organizations choose to split the role to achieve deeper and more balanced product and engineering representation on their management teams. In Fintech, this is due to increasing regulatory pressures, more sophisticated cyber threats, and the need to maintain highly scalable, resilient architecture as companies grow.

Moreover, the rise of AI-driven technical complexity and the hypergrowth it fuels increasingly demands deep technical expertise alongside strong product leadership at the C-suite level. Through all this, heightened competition and rising customer expectations require firms to maintain a healthy tension between product and technology leaders, who often have differing priorities. Given how rare it is to find a candidate that is strong in both domains, attempting to consolidate these responsibilities in a single role is increasingly challenging.