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[tr][td]Hi all,

Recap (for those who do not want to read the whole thing) - Graduate from a middle class Uni in UK. Work in Operations (middle office) in Morgan Stanley. Need a different job for pay and something more interesting, but feel like I have already missed my chances with any good job. Open to any suggestions (Masters, CBA, MBA etc. )  Career advice needed, please help.

First time poster here .  I am 23 right now. So I graduate from UK University of Strathclyde Glasgow ( Joint Hons in Finance and Marketing). For some year (2016 i think )  they ranked the uni first in Finance for whole of UK and I see they rank it quite high in rankings, but I am pretty sure that companies will not regard it as a top Uni. Then got a job in Morgan Stanley Glasgow Operations (they tell us we are middle office but i am not even sure if there is such a thing). I am okay with the job but pay is bad and the whole job is really repetitive.
I have been looking to get in better roles in the Financial Industry. From my research it seems like Private Equity is best thing because of the pay and the more normal working hours when compared to Investment Banking, but it seems like I do not have at all the background to get into PE and chances are less than 1%.
What do you think is my best option for my future career so I can maximize my income in the future? I have read getting into Corporate Development, Investment Banking or Venture Capital can be a way to get into PE, but from all the stuff I have been reading it seems likes it I have little chances getting into these as well.
I was thinking of getting CFA exams and/or Masters Degree or a MBA. Basically I am open to any options so I can maxime my income  in the financial industry. Somebody adviced me to start networking but I have no idea where to start from and if it is not better to focus on the other options.

Please help.
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My two cents. You are in Morgan Stanley Glasgow, an apparent back office ghetto. You need to transition to Morgan Stanley London. Find a career opening there that fits your interests (how about this?). Learn what it takes to get there. They are pretty explicit about their "desired skills". It might take you several years to acquire them -- plan it out. 

Talk to everybody you can find at your current location who can give you insight. A lot of them will know people in whatever London group is your target. Maybe they can make an introduction so that you can have a brief phone conversation, or have a coffee in London with one of them, or attend an event In London where you can meet some of them, etc. That's the networking part. Good luck. 

Alan's general networking advise is spot on, but having spent much of my adult life in organizations like Morgan Stanley (including a couple of years in MS itself) I'm not sure this is likely to be a fruitful path in your case. In these organizations, it is really hard to make internal transfers into what are generally perceived as more glamorous areas, whether that be from operations to middle office or from model validation to a front office quant group. As a side remark, middle office is a real thing, at least on the OTC derivatives side of the business. 23 is still young, and the combination of Strathclyde and Morgan Stanley makes for the beginning of a decent resume. If you can get into and fund (big ifs) a high end MBA program, that is probably your best bet for your goal of maximizing your income in the financial industry, and might just possibly be a gateway to the PE business, of which I know nothing. In your shoes, I'm not convinced I would remain singularly focused on the financial industry. It had a good run from the mid 80's to the crisis. These days it kind of pales compared to various tech areas, as it did in the late 90's, but the current tech bubble feels a bit more solid. The CFA is, at least in principle, useful for an asset management career, but so many people take it that it lacks the signaling effect of a high end MBA program. Under no circumstances would I recommend paying good money for an MBA program that is not highly ranked. That game is overwhelmingly about networking and signaling, neither of which amounts to much at your average business school.

middle office is a real thing, but if he's in operations, that sounds like back office
googling morgan stanley glasgow middle office turns up jobs like settlements and securities lending

Securities Lending Associate

Skills Required:
The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate:
(snip)
An understanding of escalation
(snip)

wth?

Well, as the non-native speaker of this language, I will go out on a limb and suggest that this relates to the question of when to make a decision yourself and when to pass it on to your boss.

Just ran across this, which indeed supports bearish's point about the difficulty of Glasgow->London transfers. My earlier advice allowed for having to first leave the firm, but how sad (for MS) if the worst thing on your resume to work in London would be to have worked in Glasgow! I wonder if this is partly a class mobility thing?

Reminds me of a phenomenon where a large organization (say 20,000+ employees) needs a new CEO and they end up hiring from outside the group -- sometimes from a different industry! While sometimes this can make sense, I think generally it is a sign of organizational dysfunction, and often leads to a succession of (failed) CEO's.