Working at a huge private equity or private credit firm has its perks. The pay packages can still be attractive, even if they’ve been a bit meagre recently, and some firms have still been hiring strongly.
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2025 UK accounts released earlier this week for Apollo and KKR offered an insight into just how attractive they can be, through their companies house registered firms, Apollo Management International LLP (Apollo) and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Partners LLP (KKR).
Both firms did pretty well. Revenue at Apollo went from $467m in 2024 to $657m in 2025, a 40% increase, and at KKR they went from £150m ($199m) to £177m ($234m), an 18% increase. Operating profit was up to, by 15% at Apollo and 8% at KKR. Both subsidiaries outperformed their parent companies’ global performances.
Both firms, accordingly, increased headcount. Apollo went from 301 people to 340 people in the UK across 2025, and KKR went from 169 people to 182 during the year. Interestingly, at Apollo the increase was driven solely by an increase in admin, with the number of “investment professionals” decreasing; at KKR, it was “executives and associates” that grew in number, while admin-related employees declined.
Pay is where things get more complicated. On paper, Apollo paid around $618k per head to its staff in 2025, up from the $521k it paid on average in 2024. KKR, meanwhile, paid “only” around £196k ($259k) in 2025, although that was also up from the £171k ($226k) it paid on average in 2024.
Things were complicated by each firm’s members (UK legal jargon for partners in a partnership). Despite being half the size of Apollo on paper, KKR had three times as many members – 27 for Apollo, and 88 for KKR, up from 28 and 95 last year, respectively.
Apollo’s 27 partners earned an average of $6.5m each for their work in 2025, up from the $5.7m they earned on average for 2024. That figure includes a large $20m lump sum in 2025 to “the member with the largest entitlement,” which was $169m last year. This is very possibly Apollo’s US parent company.
At KKR, the firm’s 88 members included two corporate members. Discounting these, the firm paid out just £327k ($432k) to its individual members in 2025, and £308k ($407k) each in 2024. KKR’s parent company, meanwhile, received £21m ($28m).
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