For the first time in five years, compensation across mid-market private equity has stopped moving in a single direction. Base salaries have flattened, signing structures have grown more creative, and carry distribution — long the most stable element of the package — has begun to fragment in ways worth understanding.
This piece draws on Fowlers Place's running benchmark of compensation data across $1–5B North American mid-market funds. The dataset reflects offers extended and accepted over the past 18 months — not advertised ranges or surveyed estimates. Where numbers are imprecise, that imprecision is intentional. Compensation in this market is too situational to pretend otherwise.
1. Base salaries have flattened
Through 2021–2024, base salaries at mid-market funds drifted upward at roughly 6–9% per year. That trend has now broken. Across the dataset, median base for Principals and Vice Presidents has held within a 2% band of last year's number. At the Partner level, base is essentially unchanged.
This is not a tightening market. Bonuses and carry remain healthy. What has shifted is that funds have absorbed the lessons of the past three years and concluded that they were paying for retention, not performance. Base growth has compressed because firms have realized they were not getting the return.
2. Carry distribution is fragmenting
The more interesting development sits in carry. The traditional model — a single waterfall, vested over the fund life, distributed by seniority — has begun to splinter at the senior partner level. We're seeing three patterns emerge:
- A.Deal-specific carry overlays. Senior investors are increasingly negotiating additional carry tied to deals they source or champion — sitting alongside the standard fund carry, not replacing it.
- B.Accelerated vesting at the senior end. Partners moving from established firms to growing platforms are negotiating significantly shorter vesting cliffs — 2 to 3 years rather than 4 to 5.
- C.Co-investment as a carry substitute. Funds that cannot stretch carry economics are instead offering preferential co-investment terms. Sophisticated senior hires understand the math and increasingly favor this trade.
3. Signing structures are getting creative
Signing bonuses themselves have not increased materially in size. What has changed is how they're structured. We are seeing more multi-tranche sign-ons — typically split across the first two years of tenure — and increasingly, sign-ons that bridge unvested carry being left at a prior firm.
The implication for hiring funds: the standard offer letter is no longer fit for purpose at the senior end. Expect to construct the package, not simply quote it.
4. What this means for hiring
Three practical implications for funds preparing to recruit senior investors in 2026 and 2027:
- i.Lead with carry, not base. The market is reading firms that lead with base as inexperienced. Lead with the carry structure, with optionality, and with the path to platform leadership.
- ii.Be ready for unvested-carry bridging. The single biggest deal-breaker on senior offers in the past 12 months has been the inability to bridge unvested carry at a prior firm.
- iii.Treat the package as a negotiation, not a quote. Two senior partners will rarely accept the same package. The discipline is to have a structure, not a number.
A note on data
This benchmark draws on accepted offers across mandates Fowlers Place has run or been close to in the past 18 months, supplemented by partner conversations across the wider market. No individual offer is identifiable in the aggregated dataset. We update the benchmark quarterly and share more detailed cuts privately with clients who have engaged us on retained mandates.
If you are preparing to hire — or considering your own move — and want to discuss the data privately, we are always reachable at april@fowlersplace.com.