Industry on Industry Does financial drama chime with the lives of real City traders?

As the latest series of acclaimed TV drama Industry returns to screens with much fanfare, eagleeyed viewers may have spotted a cameo in episode two from what appears to be the Guardian's own business blog.

- Julia Kollewe

While the headline on the mocked up webpage is fictional like everything in this account of the drug and sex-fuelled lives of young City workers - it shows an attention to detail and appearance of authenticity that has helped turn the BBC One show into a sleeper hit.

Since its debut in 2020, Industry has purported to depict the "unrelenting world of high finance", drawing on the experiences of writers Konrad Kay and Mickey Down who both had stints working for big financial firms to tell the high-stakes stories of the employees of the invented investment bank Pierpoint & Co.

But as the third series is broadcast, with its cocaine-fuelled confessions, sex and more sex, and Kit Harington's character Henry Muck saying "I find I sleep deeper under my desk", just how realistic do those who have worked in the sector think it is?

One former investment banker said that, while he recognised some of the bed-hopping from his early years working for a big European investment bank in Canary Wharf in the early 2000s, things had "changed dramatically" since then.