Associate - Strategic Advisory (Media and Technology)

PJT Partners is hiring an Associate into its TMT sector coverage within Strategic Advisory, in London. The posting says the Associate 'will be a critical member of PJT's expanding TMT team with direct involvement in both deal execution and business development, working on lean deal teams with direct exposure to the most senior practitioners', that the role spans a number of sectors, and - the line that pins the coverage down - 'we are seeking candidates who possess knowledge of and interest in the Media and Software industry, as this role will be specifically within PJT's TMT sector in Strategic Advisory'. The work listed: evaluating, structuring and recommending strategic alternatives including M&A, asset sales and divestitures; leading day-to-day execution including due diligence, valuation and negotiating contracts; researching targeted industries; designing quantitative models; preparing written analysis for management and clients; participating in client meetings, negotiations and diligence sessions; and mentoring and training juniors. Source

TMT is not one business model but several, and the first job on any TMT posting is working out which one it means. For B2B SaaS the vocabulary is ARR and MRR, net revenue retention - above 120% is elite, below 100% means revenue is leaking - gross retention, the Rule of 40, Magic Number and Burn Multiple. For consumer platforms and marketplaces the words change completely: GMV rather than revenue, since $1bn of GMV at a 2% take rate is only $20m of revenue; take rate; DAU over MAU, where above 50% is sticky and below 20% is weak; ARPU against ARPPU; and LTV to CAC, where 3.0x is the target and below 1.0x destroys value. Contractual businesses forecast retention from signed deals; non-contractual platforms rely on network effects as the retention mechanism itself. Cohort analysis beats blended averages nearly everywhere, and selective cohort reporting is a classic red flag - alongside take-rate compression, customer acquisition cost understated by two to three times, over-adjusted EBITDA, and top-ten customer concentration above 20%. Source

One desk, three different labels, and it is worth knowing which to believe. The job title says 'Media and Technology'; the application link the firm uses says TMT; the qualifications say 'the Media and Software industry'. Take the narrowest, because it is the most specific and it is the one written in a sentence rather than a slug: software and media. Software means the subscription metric stack - retention, cohorts, Rule of 40. Media means content and advertising economics, which is a different argument entirely. Prepare both, and do not walk in ready to talk about telecoms towers because the acronym on the URL happens to include a T.

The unit is PJT's TMT desk inside the Strategic Advisory group - a group the posting calls one of the most experienced investment banking teams in the industry, involved in some of the largest and most complex transactions of the past twenty years, and covering technology, media and telecommunications, natural resources, power and utilities, industrials, healthcare and real estate globally. The posting calls the TMT team 'expanding', says the deal teams are lean, and warns that 'given the lean nature of our teams all our bankers are flexible and should be prepared to work in sectors/countries outside their main area of focus'. Source

26 people have held London roles in PJT's Strategic Advisory group since 2018 - that is the whole group across every sector, so the TMT desk inside it is small by arithmetic, which is consistent with the posting's own description of lean teams.

The word 'expanding' is the one that matters commercially. A desk that is adding rather than replacing is one where the work has arrived before the people have, and that is when a well-matched application is most likely to be read properly rather than filed. It also explains the flexibility clause: on a growing lean team you get pulled onto whatever is live, so expect a broader deal sheet than the sector label promises.

PJT Partners is a global advisory-focused investment bank delivering strategic advisory, shareholder advisory, restructuring and special situations, and private fund advisory and placement to corporations, financial sponsors, institutional investors and governments, with private fund advisory and fundraising for private equity, real estate and hedge fund managers run through PJT Park Hill. Source

150 people have held London roles at PJT Partners as a whole since 2018. Our named London units for the firm are Restructuring at 44, Strategic Advisory at 26, M&A at 6 and Park Hill at 5, so the advisory and restructuring sides both have real benches here.

The tag on our row says off-cycle and that is wrong: an off-cycle listing means an internship, and this asks for two to five years of relevant experience. What it actually is is a lateral Associate hire on a growing desk. If you came here looking for a winter internship, keep going - and if you are a banking analyst, this is one of the more open doors of its kind.

Posted 30 July 2026 with no deadline. Named seats close when someone accepts, so the date it opened is the only clock - five weeks in, with an expanding team behind it, is still early enough to be worth sending this week rather than next month.

Stated qualifications: a minimum bachelor's degree; two to five years of relevant investment banking or corporate development experience; experience with financial modelling including developing detailed operating and valuation models for complex transactions; full breadth of financing experience - equity, equity-linked and debt - and strategic advisory experience; knowledge of and experience in the TMT industry, specifically media, technology and related transactions, preferred; fluency in English required and another European language preferred; strong quantitative and analytical skills; strategic and creative thinking and distinguished written and oral communication. The resume must be in PDF format. Source

Two things on that list are unusually open for an Associate seat at a firm of this kind. The floor is two years rather than three, which puts a second-year analyst inside it rather than a year short. And 'corporate development' is named alongside investment banking, which means M&A done inside a technology or media company counts - a route that most banking postings quietly exclude. It is still not a graduate seat and no reading of it makes one. But if you are an analyst two years in, or doing deals in a corp dev team and wondering whether banks will look at you, this row says one will.

Sector knowledge is 'preferred', not required, while the modelling and financing experience are not hedged at all. That tells you what the screen actually is: they will take the transferable execution skills and teach you media and software, but they will not teach you to build the model. Lead with the transactions you have run end to end.