• Henry Lee left his corporate accounting career to open a Korean fried chicken franchise.
• Lee bounced between Big Four firms like Deloitte and Ernst & Young, seeking salary increases.
• He now owns six Bonchon fried chicken locations in Colorado and plans to open a large food hall.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Henry Lee, a 46-year-old franchise owner in Aurora, Colorado. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Academics were never my strong suit. My GPA was barely 3.0 while I attended a small school in Tennessee on a football scholarship. I majored in finance and economics.

My goal was to get to the NFL, but when I realized that was not happening, I started looking for a job related to my major.

After working as an accountant for multiple companies, including Big Fours, I left my corporate career to open a fried chicken franchise. I'm so much happier now.

Once I got to my first Big Four, I jumped around

My first job was for PRG-Schultz, a debt recovery company specializing in sales tax recovery. I found the position and applied through a job site.

After that, I worked as a sales tax accountant at International Rectifier. My manager told me I should try to get a job at a Big Four. I didn't have an impressive résumé, but I applied, interviewed, and got hired as a senior tax associate at Deloitte. Working in sales tax is incredibly niche, and I think that helped me get the job.

Working at Deloitte opened up many doors

Everyone majoring in accounting hopes to one day work at a Big Four. Once you have one of these companies on your résumé, it doesn't matter where you attended college.

I didn't consider the work difficult — I rarely get stressed out and don't take things too seriously. You're expected to bill lots of hours and work overtime. There's also a lot of office politics.

Over the next 10 years, I hopped around to work at different companies, staying only about a year each time. Back then, people would leave to work at other companies for salary increases, which is how I ended up at Ernst & Young.

I chased the highest possible salary bumps

A former colleague referred me to EY. We got referral bonuses, so everyone tried to refer as many people as possible. After that, another position opened up with Deloitte in San Diego, and I left for another salary bump.

My salary increased by two to three percent annually, so it was more profitable to move to another company and get a 20% to 25% salary increase plus a signing bonus.

I was laid off from my second role at Deloitte in 2008 during the recession. After working at Burger King as a senior tax specialist, I was referred to Accenture in 2011 as a senior consultant by a former colleague.

My experiences at the Big Four companies were similar

My performance reviews were usually good to average. I didn't consider myself a superstar or a high-performing employee. The working environment was similar in all three of them. Only the people were different.

Deloitte was fun because the people in my department weren't uptight. EY was more strict overall.

PwC, where I started working in 2014, was my favorite company. I formed a relationship there with a former Microsoft employee who referred me to Microsoft in 2013. Microsoft had the best work-life balance of all the companies.

Eventually, I was tired of the internal politics at these companies and the endless Zoom meetings, which were a waste of time. I thought, 'I couldn't just be born to do taxes,' and the work was not groundbreaking, rewarding, or challenging. I was unproductive and uninterested in the job. They call it quiet quitting nowadays.

I was considering what to do next. Growing up, my family owned a Chinese restaurant. I missed Korean fried chicken in Colorado, which was so good in Los Angeles but terrible here.

I decided to open a Korean fried chicken franchise myself

I decided to franchise with Bonchon because I missed it from living in Los Angeles. I invested my life savings into opening the first location and the initial franchise fee by cashing out my 401(k) of around $100,000.

I underwent three weeks of kitchen training, during which I learned how to fry chicken, cook the dishes, and prep the veggies. Training also included front-of-house training.

While opening the restaurant, I still worked at Microsoft but quit eight months in. As a senior tax manager, the salary I left behind was just under $160,000.

After opening the first location in Denver in 2018, the business took off

I bought all the franchise rights in Colorado and now have six locations. I also own a boba tea shop, and my next venture is opening a 15,000-square-foot food hall with seven restaurants.

The most significant difference is that in corporate, you're expected to be in the office for 40-50 hours regardless of if you have work or projects to do. When you own a business, you work when needed.

When I first opened Bonchon, I cooked and ran day-to-day operations in the kitchen. I worked around 60-80 hours a week, seven days a week. It was a grind for the first year because of the steep learning curve.

By the time I opened my third location, I was hands-off on the day-to-day operations and relied on my managers. I'm much happier now.

I have a wife and two kids and can spend much more time with them now.

I would never, ever go back to corporate

Working in corporate is like being stuck in the matrix; after you find your way out, it's like night and day. You can't go back once you experience the freedom to do whatever you want.

When you leave corporate, you realize you're capable of so much, but leaving the security, steady paycheck, and benefits was scary. I have an increased net worth, and getting capital to expand or fund others is much easier. I wish I left much earlier in my career.

• PwC launches "agent OS" a new platform for AI agents to interact.
• Agent OS ensures agents won't operate like "ships passing in the night" PwC exec Matt Wood told BI.
• Big 4 professional services firms from Deloitte to EY are revving up investment in AI agents.

PwC wants to help your AI agents talk to each other.

The professional services firm has been building and deploying AI agents for the past nineteen months for different clients, operating separately. In that time, leadership has noticed agents often operate "like ships passing in the night," Matt Wood, PwC's global and US commercial technology and innovation officer, told Business Insider.

PwC doesn't think silent communication will work in the AI era. Its goal, Wood said, is "moving them from ships that pass in the night to being an armada that's working together."

On Thursday, PwC unveiled "agent OS," a new platform it describes as a "switchboard" for enterprise AI. It lets companies build agents, customize them, and connect them to each other to automate complex tasks.

PwC said in a press release agent OS is built for a world where companies are developing AI agents in a variety of ways, whether they're embedding them as features within platforms, as standalone applications, or as highly specialized agents built on proprietary or open-source software.

Agent OS integrates with systems from Anthropic to Google Cloud to Microsoft Azure, the company said. Users can test workflows directly in agent OS and integrate them into systems their teams or customers are already working with, Wood said.

So, a marketing executive at a retail company could speed through a new ad campaign by connecting creative generation agents built through OpenAI with testing agents on Google Cloud and analytics agents from Salesforce.

PwC said that once the platform is up and running in a client's environment, they can roll out multi-agent solutions in just a couple of weeks.

Agents have taken center stage this year as companies bet on their potential to liberate their workforces. This form of AI technology can execute tasks autonomously, constantly learn from its environment, and troubleshoot when necessary.

Consulting firms especially have invested heavily into building agentic solutions for themselves and clients. This month, Deloitte launched Zora AI, a suite of specialized agents it says can execute tasks across domains from finance and procurement. EY, too, introduced the EY.ai Agentic Platform which it says will assist workers in the firm's tax division with tasks like data collection, document analysis and review, and income and indirect tax compliance.

At PwC, agents have become a way to "amplify" existing talent, Wood said. The firm has built more than 250 internal agents and more for clients, he added.

As companies expand their use of agents, though, it's essential to ensure they can work in tandem.

"Most agents today, they're built in isolation and you kind of have to build them that way because that isolation allows you to drive up the accuracy with which they operate," Wood said.

As a result, they don't have much interoperability, he said.

Agents are isolated by where and how they're built and "don't really often speak the same language, and so they don't know how to collaborate, you know, right out of the box," he added.

• The Big Four are competing to develop the best AI solutions.
• Deloitte and EY just launched into the next phase of competition — AI agents to work alongside employees.
• Agentic AI could reshape consultancies' business model.

The Big Four professional services firms are running their own AI race.

Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG have been investing heavily in automation and AI for several years, competing to build the best solutions for their clients and optimize operations in-house. Innovation by the Big Four, with their hundreds of thousands of employees, sets an example to businesses around the world.

Now, they're onto what tech industry players often call the third wave of AI: agentic AI. It revolves around intelligent systems, or "agents," that can complete tasks or make decisions without human input. Where AI chatbots just respond to questions, AI agents can take action.

Last week, Deloitte and EY announced new agentic AI platforms, both built in collaboration with Nvidia.

Deloitte's platform, Zora AI, provides clients with a selection of "intelligent digital workers" or agents that can perceive, reason, and act to complete tasks autonomously, Deloitte said in a press release.

The platform will act as a "digital workforce to change the way work gets done," Deloitte said.

Deloitte's finance team is already using the platform, and the consulting firm plans to give thousands of employees access to Zora AI by the end of the year.

Zora AI agents will support Deloitte employees with financial tasks, such as expense and invoice management, analysis of sales and performance trends, and the optimization of working capital requirements. The platform will be expanded to support other functions including procurement, sales and marketing, and customer services.

On the same day, EY introduced the EY.ai Agentic Platform, an agentic AI platform that will initially be used by 80,000 workers from the firm's tax division. They'll have access to 150 tax agents who will assist with tasks like data collection, document analysis and review, and income and indirect tax compliance.

'Liberate thousands of hours'

Deloitte and EY touted that agentic AI would be both helpful for workers and transformative in the workplace.

Jason Girzadas, Deloitte's US CEO, said Agentic AI represented the beginning of "the autonomous enterprise era" and would transform work and business models.

The firm said Zora AI would reduce the finance team's costs by 25%, increase productivity by 40%, and "liberate thousands of hours of effort a year."

Raj Sharma, EY's global managing partner for growth and innovation, similarly praised agentic AI's potential in a press release, saying that it is "fundamentally transforming business operations."

Having actionable insights provided by this kind of technology "will impact whether businesses succeed or fall behind," Sharma said.

This combined workforce of tax professionals and AI agents will aim to surpass 3 million tax compliance cases and redefine more than 30 million tax processes in the next year.

EY told BI that prior testing with an EY tax model demonstrated improved answer quality, achieving 86% accuracy compared to a generic model.

Changing the business model

Before achieving the vast transformational potential that proponents promise AI agents will deliver, Big Four firms and other businesses must first work out how to manage the new digital class of workers and how best to integrate new solutions into their business models.

At the World Economic Forum in January, EY's Sharma told BI the power of AI agents is forcing the firm to reconsider its commercial model.

Instead of charging clients based on the hours and resources EY might spend on a project, Sharma said AI agents may call for a "service-as-a-software" approach where clients pay based on outcome.

Deloitte did not respond to BI's questions about how the agents would affect its workforce. In a Wednesday panel at Nvidia's GTC conference about empowering the federal workforce with AI, Deloitte principal Jillian Wanner said the consulting industry as a whole is being "disrupted" amid AI transformations.

"It is no longer acceptable at Deloitte to not take an engineering first mindset," Wanner, who helps lead AI staff development at Deloitte, said. As the industry shifts, Deloitte employees need to act as "technologists and engineers first," and "consultants second."

David Rowlands, KPMG's global head of AI, told BI that the firm is weaving AI agents into the way it delivers services for clients, using them as "innovative digital team-mates working closely with our brilliant people in Audit, Tax and Advisory."

Rowlands said that KPMG is working with its technology partners to create agentic solutions around customer service, quality, insight, reporting, assurance, and efficiency.

"Soon we will be working side-by-side with an agentic workforce that is well-trained, fast, flush with intelligence — IQ and EQ — one that ignores siloes, borders, politics and never sleeps," a KPMG spokesperson added.

PwC is also working to establish how agentic AI fits in with the firm's operations. Umang Paw, PwC UK's chief technology officer, told BI that the focus is on how it can "enhance operational efficiency, transform customer experiences, and drive revenue growth and profitability."

Paw added that PwC advises clients about the "transformative impacts" of agentic AI on their workforce and said that "trust, responsible AI and associated controls are built in from the outset."

Internally, the firm has already built and deployed agents "for data ingestion, investigation and cleansing" and has an "agentic framework for communicating with customers in sophisticated ways," said Bivek Sharma, PwC's chief AI officer.

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• Partner numbers at PwC's UK division fell sharply last year.
• The firm parted ways with more partners in 2024 than it had in the two previous years combined.
• The Big Four firm has also paused a hiring program for high school leavers.

PwC's UK division closed out 2024 by parting ways with more than 70 partners as the consulting giant worked to weather a slowdown in the sector.

The Big Four firm cut 76 partners from its ranks in a single day on December 31, 2024, according to Business Insider's analysis of publicly available data. The end-of-year departures topped off a year that had already seen a larger than usual number of partners depart.

A total of 124 partners left the firm in 2024, according to records at the UK's Companies House.

In 2023 and 2022 combined, 103 partners left PwC's UK arm. In those two years, it also appointed more partners than it let go, adding 225 to its most senior ranks.

Last year, the firm appointed 69 new partners. Companies House data says it has 987 active partners as of March 13.

The Financial Times first reported on PwC's partner exodus.

PwC, which doesn't provide reasons as to why partners leave the firm, declined to comment.

Partners are the most senior employees at the Big Four consultancies. Those who hold equity ownership in the business traditionally receive a share of annual profits. As market pressures have weighed on the Big Four, partner numbers and their payouts have been falling.

Partners at the UK wings of EY, PwC, and Deloitte all saw their pay fall last year as growth slowed.

The high annual exit numbers come in the same year as Marco Amitrano was appointed to lead the firm's UK and Middle East operations.

Amitrano, who took up the role in July, has launched an overhaul of operations in the UK. This includes creating a stand-alone technology and artificial intelligence unit and merging other parts of the business to create six new teams. He is also seeking to control costs amid an industry downturn.

Growth at PwC's combined UK and Middle East divisions slowed by seven percentage points to 9% in 2024.

From April 2025, it will be facing higher taxes per employee in the UK after the government increased the rate of national insurance contributions — a tax on earnings — that employers must pay.

The firm has recently paused one of its apprenticeship schemes in the UK, from which it typically hires, according to a person familiar with the matter.

BI understands that the "flying start" technology apprenticeship, which had offered opportunities to high school graduates since 2018, is no longer accepting applications.

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• Many big companies are pulling workers back to the office 5 days a week.
• The Big Four — EY, Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG — are sticking with hybrid work policies.
• Here's where the Big Four stand on hybrid work in 2025.

The world's four largest consulting and accounting firms collectively employ 1.5 million staff and take up prime commercial real estate in hundreds of major cities worldwide.

But all four firms are bucking the trend toward stricter return-to-office (RTO) policies being followed by other corporate powerhouses.

Companies including JPMorgan, Dell, AT&T, and Amazon have reversed their stance on remote work and called employees back to the office five days a week.

Federal workers have also been called to return to their offices full-time after President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating RTO on his first day in the White House.

Business Insider spoke to the Big Four about where they stand on hybrid work in 2025.

KPMG

KPMG operates a hybrid working model, with employees splitting time between the office, client sites, and home. The firm has permitted some hybrid work since before the pandemic.

The exact number of days teams come to the office is at the discretion of each member firm within the KPMG network.

"This approach centers on trusting our people to responsibly manage their working patterns to deliver the best results for clients, as well as their teams," Nhlamu Dlomu, KPMG's international global head of people, told Business Insider.

Some 81% of participants in KPMG's 2024 Global People Survey agreed with the statement, "I can work where I am most effective to meet client, business, and team needs."

KPMG says it continually assesses working practices to find the right balance between flexibility and building strong in-person relationships at work. It says it aims to hold regular team-building and social activities to support a healthy work environment.

"There's no doubt that one size does not fit all when it comes to ways of working — different organizations will have different approaches," said Dlomu.

"But, it's important for organizations to reflect on what they have gained from remote and hybrid work and what they may risk by introducing blanket mandates."

EY

EY's hybrid work policy encourages staff to work in the office two to three days a week, with the flexibility to work from home for the remaining days.

There is no single global policy on how often employees should come to the office. The number of days is at the discretion of member firms in each region.

"Globally our principle is that people work where and when they are most effective, with individual office policies set by member firms," an EY spokesperson told BI.

In January 2024, reports emerged that senior employees at the UK branch of EY were monitoring how often staff attended its offices by tracking turnstile access data. Reports at the time suggested that at least 50% of staff on some teams were flouting the two-day-a-week rule.

EY's spokesperson told BI it recognized the importance of flexibility in enabling productivity, collaboration and meeting client needs. EY believed it is important to develop "a network of workplaces, including offices, home working, coworking and meeting client preferences and policies," they said.

They added that EY continuously assesses workforce preferences to evolve its approach and create the best work experience.

PwC

PwC's policy allows hybrid employees to spend roughly 50% of their time in-person at either a client site, PwC office, or other in-person location, depending on their team and client.

The firm's UK arm has cracked down on hybrid working in recent months, however.

In January 2025, PwC tightened up its hybrid work approach in the UK by mandating staff work in the office or with clients at least 3 days a week, or 60% of their time. Previously, the UK workforce was expected in the office at least two days a week.

The firm told its 26,000 UK employees that it will also begin monitoring how often employees work from home, The Financial Times reported.

"Face-to-face working is hugely important to a people business like ours, and the new policy tips the balance of our working week into being located alongside clients and colleagues," said Laura Hinton, managing partner at PwC UK.

"At the same time, we continue to offer flexibility through hybrid working," she said.

PwC's policy in the US remains unchanged.

Deloitte

The golden rule at Deloitte is that "people are trusted to decide how they work," the firm states on its website.

Deloitte, which is the largest of the Big Four by both employees and revenue, has allowed some hybrid work since 2014. The firm made its hybrid-working policy official following lockdowns during the pandemic.

Deloitte does not mandate a set number of days in the office. Instead, the consultancy lets employees judge when to spend time between client sites, the office, and home.

When teams or clients require their presence, employees are encouraged to make every effort to be present in person.

Deloitte believes hybrid work is a tool for boosting employee experience and satisfaction, BI understands. The firm thinks employers who recognize the desire for flexibility and choice are more likely to attract, retain, and motivate the best talent.

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• The Chinese branch of PwC has cut down its partner class by over 60 in recent months.
• The decrease in partners follows PwC's record fine and a six-month suspension of operations in China.
• The firm's business fell in the Asia-Pacific region last year, with particularly slow growth in China.

Over 60 partners have stepped down from their roles at PwC's China division as the firm handles the aftermath of its involvement in the Evergrande Scandal.

The number of partners at the mainland Chinese arm of PwC has recently fallen by 66, according to filings from December and January with the Unified Supervision Platform of the Chinese CPA Profession, a regulatory platform.

Four new partners were registered in December, the filings also show.

"Over the past several months, PwC China has been reshaping its business to continue our focus on delivering the best quality services for our clients," a PwC China spokesperson told Business Insider.

"As we have gone through this process some partners have retired from the firm," the spokesperson said.

The Financial Times first reported on the partners standing down.

The decrease in partner numbers comes as PwC deals with the fallout of its involvement in the Evergrande scandal. In September, the firm was found to have helped conceal fraud at the now-collapsed Chinese property developer Evergrande by issuing false audits.

"PwC has seriously eroded the basis of law and good faith, and damaged investors' interest," the commission investigating PwC's involvement said.

Evergrande, which collapsed in January 2024, was accused of inflating its revenues by $78 billion in 2019 and 2020 — one of the largest fraud cases in history.

The Chinese government fined PwC around $62 million and removed its license to operate in the country for six months. 11 employees were fired or left the company, and state-owned enterprises have since dropped PwC as their auditor.

Mohamed Kande, PwC's global chairman, said the findings of the Evergrande audit were in "stark contrast" to the high-quality work PwC produces and were not representative of what the firm stands for.

The Big Four accounting firm has been battling to retain business in the region following the scandal. In October, PwC reported a 12.7% decline in net income for the Asia-Pacific region for the financial year ending in June.

The firm said demand was particularly slow in China, where revenue fell.

• Consulting firms have become a destination for some companies looking to make the most out of AI.
• AI leaders at these firms use tools like GPT Enterprise and internal chatbots like McKinsey's Lilli.
• BI asked AI leaders at several large companies to share tips for using the technology.

Working with artificial intelligence can sometimes feel more like an art than a science.

That's why many companies are turning to consulting firms for guidance on how to maximize the technology.

Top firms are not only helping companies develop AI tools, upskill their workforces, and identify potential security weaknesses, but they are also creating chatbots and agents to organize their firm's knowledge and streamline routine tasks. As a result, AI leaders at consulting firms tend to have a handle on AI strategies that can work for a broad range of tasks.

Business Insider asked AI execs at five top consulting firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG, McKinsey, and PwC — to share their best tips for using AI in everyday work.

The AI leaders said they regularly used various AI tools, including models from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic, as well as tools built internally, like McKinsey's Lilli, EY's EYQ, and ChatPwC, PwC's internal version of ChatGPT.

Here's how they use AI and some of their advice for getting the most out of it. Responses are edited for brevity.

How do you use AI in your work?

Dan Priest, US chief AI officer at PwC: I do a lot of research with it. For instance, I was doing some analysis on labor productivity and how AI will improve labor productivity. The typical search would produce labor statistics. Well, AI, the big powerful foundation models, it'll grab those labor facts and statistics, it'll do analysis, it'll show you trends, discontinuities, or cause analyses. It is much more robust. In terms of research and analysis, it emerges as a thought partner versus just a search engine.

You discover blind spots in your thinking. I was writing a policy and I thought it was pretty comprehensive, and I ran it through GPT Enterprise, and it found two other points in the policy that we should be adding.

Todd Lohr, head of ecosystems at KPMG: Part of my job as a leader is being able to synthesize information. AI is very helpful in that it has allowed me to understand trends and the marketplace and has enabled me to have a broader view as a leader and synthesize and ingest a lot more information.

It has also been helpful for communications in terms of preparing for meetings, follow-up from meetings, as well as correspondence.

Rodney Zemmel, global leader for McKinsey Digital and firmwide AI transformation: I've found it to be excellent at "level one" creativity and coming up with things you generally will not have thought of. It's an excellent aid to brainstorming for our teams. I haven't yet seen it as having true unbounded creativity, i.e., a new way of looking at the world. That won't be far behind, though.

What are your go-to AI prompts or advice you have for writing good prompts?

Dan Priest, PwC: I'll give some context about what I'm trying to do, a short, punchy question, and then ask follow-ups that make them increasingly specific, and then you can adjust based on what you're seeing.

During the week, I travel a lot, and if I get 100 or 200 emails in a day, it's just really hard to keep up with every single one of them. I go into Microsoft Teams, activate Copilot, and ask it to review all messages in Teams and email and find the actions for me. I'll just spend 15, 20 minutes at the end of the day, do the prompt "Identify emails that are addressed to me directly or that have an action for me," and it produces the list. It's not perfect, but it's good at it.

I like to cook, and I don't like to waste food in the refrigerator. So I will prompt, "Create a recipe with these ingredients," and I'll just list the things that I want to get rid of in the refrigerator.

Rodney Zemmel, McKinsey: Too many people are still using it to look something up. The trick is to have a dialogue with it and to get comfortable building agents that can execute simple tasks. Let AI handle the 80% of tasks we're mediocre at, so we can excel at the exciting 20%, as one of my colleagues likes to say.

Matt Barrington, Americas chief technology officer at EY: Context management is paramount. I keep separate AI "workspaces" for different focus areas — such as technical Q&A or drafting client communications.

I also give the AI clear instructions about the style and depth of response I want, like "Provide a concise, bullet-point summary," or "Act as a finance expert," or "cite credible sources or references and provide links."

What challenges are there with using AI?

Dan Priest, PwC: It is changing muscle memory.

I've spent a lot of years developing a certain writing style, a certain research technique, and I had to change that. And I am better for having changed it, but it doesn't happen overnight.

It was just like anything that you learn, you have to be disciplined about learning it, and then it sticks.

Todd Lohr, KPMG: The biggest challenge is connecting all my individual data sources that are disparate. If I want to build my own personal AI, the challenge is having access to the right information and knowledge.

I have been deliberate about addressing this challenge when I took over in my current role. I put everything in one folder and personally curated the content that I agreed with and liked.

Matt Barrington, EY: The main challenge is keeping pace with the innovation. There's a constant flow of new models, tools, and capabilities, and it can be tough to pinpoint which option is best for a given task. I follow newsletters, participate in AI-focused events, and learn from AI practitioners — but in my view, hands-on experimentation is the most effective way to stay informed and find what genuinely works.

Also, it is important to remember that while these models are confident and impressive, they can be wrong. Always validate the information and output before you utilize it.

What do your clients want to know about incorporating AI into their business?

Dan Priest, PwC: The questions have sort of shifted. A year ago, they were asking, "What's the killer use case?" "What's the most industrialized use case?" "What's the use case that's going to produce the most savings or the greatest deficiencies?" Now, the questions we're getting are less about those technical use cases and they're much more about "How do you evolve the business strategy to take advantage of AI capabilities?"

Rodney Zemmel, McKinsey: They want to understand how AI agents can integrate with their workforce, acting like talented interns who need proper training to be effective. We've also seen the conversation move from just productivity to growth and productivity, and to finding ways to do things better and faster than humans to doing things that no human could possibly do.

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• Consultant starting salaries have remained flat since 2023, a new report found.
• Management Consulted found salaries were largely stagnant at boutique, MBB, and Big Four firms.
• The industry has been impacted recently by slowing demand and AI-fueled productivity increases.

Starting salaries for consultants at both top firms and boutique consultancies largely remained flat for the second year in a row, according to a new report from Management Consulted, a company that provides online resources and career coaching to professionals trying to land jobs in consulting.

The report found that starting pay has remained stagnant since 2023 as the consulting industry reels from a slowdown in demand for services, despite some recent signs of improvement. Previously, annual increases of 5 to 10% were standard for the industry, according to Management Consulted.

The company's 2025 Consulting Salaries Report included over 100 firms and was based on submissions and offer letters shared by its readers and clients who work in consulting. Management Consulted said it does not include salary information that it is unable to verify.

The report found that starting total compensation at the Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY — has not increased since 2023. This was true for new hires coming out of undergraduate programs as well as the higher paid ones coming out of MBAs or PhDs.

The same was largely true for new hires at MBB firms — McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group — which are widely considered the most prestigious strategy consulting firms and are known for their competitive pay packages.

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The report said that Management Consulted expected salaries to remain flat despite some increases in demand for consulting services in 2024, which came after a couple years of a downturn that saw major firms conducting layoffs or delaying start dates for new hires.

The plateau is notable given that consulting compensation surged in 2022 and 2023, according to Management Consulted's 2023 salary trends video. The last major increase before that was in 2019.

In 2023 post-MBA hires earned a base salary of $192,000, a performance bonus of up to $60,000, and a signing bonus of $35,000 at the top tiers. Pre-MBA hires earned a base salary of $112,000, a performance bonus of up to $30,000, and a signing bonus of around $5,000.

However, salaries and performance bonuses rose across the industry in 2023, with several firms enhancing benefits like profit-sharing, paid leave, and retirement contributions. Boston Consulting Group even overhauled its compensation structure in a bid to attract new talent and retain existing talent.

One reason salaries remained the same in 2024, according to the report, is productivity advancements sparked by generative AI and remote work. The report also said fewer consultants were leaving the industry due to limited opportunities elsewhere, meaning the stagnant salaries could be another potential side effect of the so-called white-collar recession.

"AI enablement is enabling consulting firms to accomplish more with fewer hires. Productivity gains, combined with slower attrition, reduce the need for new hires and stall salary growth," Namaan Mian, chief operating officer of Management Consulted, said in comments shared with Business Insider.

Mian also said the perception of the value of hiring MBAs, who typically make a higher starting salary than consultants coming out of undergrad, varies widely.

"Firms historically pay MBAs twice as much, but don't get twice the value from them. This doesn't fly in an efficiency oriented environment," Mian said. "This is why we're seeing less hiring from MBA programs and more from undergraduate ones."

Some firms also used changes in their variable compensation — in which pay is partially determined by performance via bonuses — to make their pay packages look more attractive, the report said, adding that only 5 to 10% of consultants typically earn the maximum amount of their bonus.

Management Consulted said it expects an increase in hiring as demand for consulting services and attrition are expected to increase in the coming years. However, it said salaries for new hires could remain stagnant.

Do you work in consulting and have insights to share about the industry? Contact this reporter at lvaranasi@businessinsider.com or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at lvaranasi.70.

• Former director at PwC and British Airways Michael Doolin has 36 years of experience in HR.
• He shares his advice for job-seekers who have been laid off and are interviewing for new roles.
• Doolin said it's important to frame the lay off as an opportunity and shared suggested scripts.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Michael Doolin, CEO of Clover HR and former human resources director at PwC, British Airways, and DPD in Ireland. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

A redundancy, also known as being laid off, is a forced exit and a permanent loss of employment that occurs when employers need to reduce their workforce.

I've been telling people bad news for nearly 40 years. It doesn't get any easier. I'm impacting the lives of the people in front of me, as well as their partners and family. It has a tremendous knock-on effect.

30 years ago, one of my previous bosses told me that I must never lose that sense of responsibility. Redundancies need to be handled very sensitively. It's important to me that the individual leaves the room with their head held high, knowing that they've been treated fairly and transparently.

It's not unusual to be made redundant. Most of the time, the employee has done nothing wrong. The average person will have 12 jobs throughout their career, and redundancies can happen in that time. Between July and September 2024, 90,000 people were made redundant in the UK.

In future job interviews, hiring managers will usually ask, "Why did you leave your last role?" Here's how to navigate having been laid off in an interview for a new job.

Be transparent

Don't avoid the question. Be upfront and say: "I left my previous company due to redundancy. There were a number of positions lost, and, unfortunately, I was one of those affected." Provide a clear and concise explanation of the circumstances, and give specifics about the scale of the redundancy if you know them.

Do not lie about layoffs. A skilled interviewer can see when people aren't being open. When you can see someone being dishonest as an interviewer, it gives negative signals about the candidate's character and resilience.

Be honest about your disappointment, but stress that you've moved on

It's fair to tell your interviewers that losing your job was a shock. You can say that it's a huge change, and that it's been disappointing or depressing. Expressing your feelings demonstrates emotional intelligence, showing that you can process challenges and learning from them.

Being open about the emotional impact of redundancy requires a balance. Ultimately, you should remain professional and focus on growth. Tell your interviewers that, after a period of reflection, you've moved forward. Interviewers typically respond positively to candidates who acknowledge their challenges while emphasizing how they've used the experience to grow and realign their career goals, not those who continue to be downhearted about their previous lives.

Focus on the positives

It's very possible to draw positives from your redundancy situation. It can be viewed through the lens of change: new skill opportunities, new ways of working, and new horizons.

For example, you can say: "I was sad to leave my employer of X years. I've reflected on that and realized that it gave me the opportunity to be in a room with you, talking about my vision for the future and the skills and experiences that I can bring to this team. I'm very excited about that.

"In a way, my redundancy has done me a favor because I'm enthused, energetic, and looking forward to the future. Possibly, it's a change I wouldn't have undertaken had I not been forced to, but I'm embracing it as an opportunity."

Remain professional

If you're feeling resentment or anger about your redundancy, you need to handle this outside the interview. Candidates should see the interview room as a shop window to facilitate their potential entry into a new career. You have to go into that opportunity with your best efforts. It is not the time to express anger or recrimination.

Don't criticize your previous employer. You can use adverbs like "sadly," "disappointingly," or "regrettably" when talking about your last job. The interviewer may pick up the subtle hints you weren't happy with how layoffs was handled.

Highlight your achievements

It's still important to discuss your achievements in your previous employment, even if you were made redundant. They don't go away. Share specific examples of how you met or exceeded expectations to reinforce your value and forward-thinking attitude.

Just because the business failed, it doesn't mean you failed. Be sure to share any details that give more context to the scale of the redundancy with interviewers.

Remember that redundancies are usually not the employee's fault

Most layoffs are due to changing market outlooks, foreign exchange movements, or world events outside one's control. Either way, redundancy is not something to be ashamed of.

Approaching an interview without shame around being laid off will allow you to present yourself positively, emphasizing your achievements and skills. By framing redundancy as an opportunity for growth, you demonstrate resilience and adaptability.

This mindset shows you can turn challenges into stepping stones, which can be appealing to prospective employers.

• Nearly 160 accounting execs and partners were asked about why firms were making more auditing errors.
• The auditors were split on whether a better work-life balance could reduce the number of errors.
• But they have to consider whether remote work could help attract Gen Zers amid an accountant shortage.

US accounting firms are split on how to deal with the shift to remote work, a report published by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a government-backed audit-oversight board, has found.

The report, published last month, was part of the PCAOB's investigation into why auditing errors had surged following the pandemic and whether internal culture contributed. Though deficiency rates slowed in 2023, they've consistently risen since 2020. Accounting errors can lead to embarrassing and costly legal challenges and damage business integrity.

The report was based on inspections of quality-control systems and anonymous interviews with 156 executives and partners at six major firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, BDO, and Grant Thornton.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said that improving work-life balance for firm personnel improved audit quality.

However, roughly one-third of senior executives and partners from the six major firms surveyed said that contemporary remote- and hybrid-work culture had negatively affected auditing firms' quality control.

They said a loss of in-person interactions was making assimilation into the firm's culture more difficult, with newer recruits less attuned to the cultural importance of audit control.

Development opportunities were another concern, with some respondents saying firms were losing the "apprenticeship culture" they've traditionally favored.

"The delayed development of firm personnel affected productivity and made it difficult for some to meet deadlines and expectations," some respondents said.

At one of the audit firms, managers and partners were stepping down a level to do audit work traditionally performed by more junior personnel. This led to reduced scrutiny of the audit work, respondents said.

The Gen Z problem

Tied up with the questions about work-life balance and audit quality is another big issue facing accounting firms: how to attract Gen Z talent.

Respondents from all six firms said that "resource challenges" in terms of hiring were a factor in the increasing audit deficiencies or an overall concern for their companies.

In recent years, auditing firms have struggled to attract younger workers, who expect a better work-life balance.

"The younger generation have differing views on careers than their older counterparts, with many viewing their work more as a job, rather than a career, and are therefore more likely to leave the profession if presented with more attractive opportunities," the PCAOB said.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants says about 65,000 students in the US completed bachelor's or master's degrees in accounting in the 2021-22 school year, 18% fewer than a decade earlier. Of those who study accounting, only a portion become certified public accountants. About 30,000 people took the CPA exam in 2022, compared with nearly 50,000 people in 2010.

The fear of personnel leaving was one reason that return-to-office policies weren't being pushed at firms, some respondents said.

• EY, Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG make up the world's largest accounting and consulting firms — the Big Four.
• The sector is tackling a slowdown in demand, new regulatory pressures, and the need to adapt to AI.
• These are the four leaders who have made it to the top of the firms.

EY, Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG make up the world's largest accounting and consulting firms, known as the Big Four.

They're billion-dollar companies with a collective 1.5 million staff and influence over hundreds of industries.

In recent years, the Big Four have faced a series of challenges, including a downturn in demand after the height of the pandemic, shifting regulatory requirements, and the need to adapt their skills and services for the emerging AI future.

Two of the firms appointed new leaders in 2024. The process varies by firm but generally includes hustings, in which contenders present their vision to voters, a partner vote, and global board ratification.

These are the four people who now sit at the helm of the world's biggest professional-services firms.

PwC — Mohamed Kande

In July, Mohamed Kande was elected as PwC's global chair for a four-year term, becoming the first Black leader of a Big Four firm.

Kande is also the first PwC head to come from the advisory division, as opposed to the audit wing.

Kande was born and raised in the West African country of Ivory Coast. When he was 16, he moved to France alone to study. He worked at a PwC subsidiary called PRTM Management Consultants before joining the firm in 2011. He became a global advisory leader in 2019.

Kande took over leading PwC's 370,000 employees at a time when it appeared to be tightening purse strings amid the consulting slowdown. Partner payouts dropped and more PwC partners took early retirement at the end of the year. In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that the firm would make its first major layoffs since 2009 and cut 1,800 jobs.

PwC is also working to rebuild trust in the Asia-Pacific region following scandals in Australia and China.

"The need for reinvention has never been more urgent," Kande said in the firm's 2024 annual review.

In 2021, he wrote a 1,000-word essay on LinkedIn about the impact his race had on his career in professional services.

"Often, I had to work hard to be included because I was different. I have felt slight but sharp jabs about my accent and my name, accompanied by quieter, larger unspokens about my skin color," Kande wrote.

"I try to give the opportunities that others gave me," he added. "I try to bring them into the room, knowing that their diversity, their unique perspective is a strength and something to be valued."

Deloitte — Joe Ucuzoglu

Joe Ucuzoglu has been Deloitte's global CEO since January 2023.

Ucuzolgu, who grew up in Los Angeles, was CEO of Deloitte US from 2019 to 2022 before ascending to the top job. He was a college intern in 1997. He rose to become a senior advisor at the SEC before rejoining Deloitte in 2015.

Deloitte is the largest of the Big Four by both revenues and number of employees, with 460,000 staff.

In March 2024, Deloitte announced a major restructuring aimed at cutting costs and repositioning it for future success. It said it was "modernizing and simplifying" its core offering into four categories: audit and assurance, tax and legal strategy, risk and transactions, and technology and transformation.

Ucuzoglu told the firm's partners in an email that the reorganization would reduce the firm's "complexity" and "free up" more partners for client work instead of managing staff.

Under Ucuzoglu, Deloitte has taken steps to drive investment in green hydrogen, releasing a report in 2023 estimating that the energy source could become a $1.4 trillion global market by 2050 and arguing that it "is moving into prime position as a solution for hard-to-abate sectors."

The CEO continues to engage with clients. He's also a frequent speaker at the World Economic Forum, a member of the Business Roundtable, and regularly gives interviews on issues affecting the business community.

EY — Janet Truncale

Janet Truncale was elected as EY's global chair and CEO in July, making her the first woman to lead a Big Four accounting firm. She joined EY as an intern in 1991.

Prior to her election, Truncale had spent almost four years as the vice chair and regional managing partner of the Americas Financial Services Organization.

The New Jersey native now heads EY's global workforce of more than 400,000 staff.

In her first public statement as global CEO, she launched a new strategy called "All in."

"All in is not just a business strategy, it captures an attitude and way of working," Truncale said. Her focus on unity has come after EY was rocked by a failed plan to break up its consultancy and audit divisions into two units, known as Project Everest.

Truncale was named as one of the "25 Most Influential Women" of 2023 by the Financial Times, which described her as "a trust builder" and "an advocate of being down to earth."

Outside EY, she serves as board chair for Women's World Banking and is on the board of UNICEF USA and the US-China Business Council.

Truncale has a BSE from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University.

KPMG — Bill Thomas

Bill Thomas became KPMG's global chairman and CEO in October 2017. Three years later, he was unanimously reelected to a second term.

Thomas has more than a decade in executive-level leadership and was previously the chairman of KPMG's Americas region from 2014 to 2017.

The Canadian leads KPMG's 275,000 employees. The firm is the smallest of the Big Four.

Over the past seven years, Thomas has focused on overseeing the development and implementation of KPMG's global strategy. Under Thomas, KPMG has launched a $5 billion digital-strategy investment plan.

"Over the coming years, my focus will be on continuing to enable and empower these talented teams to achieve their full potential," he said in a statement released on his reelection in 2020.

KPMG's global annual revenues have grown by 45% since the year Thomas was appointed CEO. In its latest annual earnings, it reported annual revenue of $38.4 billion.

Thomas stays largely out of the media spotlight, giving few interviews. Before entering the business world, he studied science, which he says is "extremely relevant today as technology infuses every part of our business and the businesses of clients."

Do you work at the Big Four and have a tip or story to share? Contact this reporter in confidence at pthompson@businessinsider.com or on Signal.

• PwC hosts "prompting parties" to help employees experiment with generative AI tools.
• The firm's chief learning officer said employees needed a safe, low-stakes format to experiment with it.
• PwC announced last year it was investing $1 billion over three years to expand its AI capabilities.

Generative AI is reshaping the workplace, but many employees are still unsure how to use it.

PwC, a Big Four professional services firm, is addressing that gap with "prompting parties."

In 2023, PwC announced it was investing $1 billion over three years to expand its AI capabilities. Later that year the company launched My AI, an upskilling initiative for employees to get trained on how to use AI responsibly.

But Leah Houde, the chief learning officer at PwC, told Business Insider that after the initial AI trainings, there was still a skill gap when it came to employees actually putting the technology to use, even though employees wanted to know more about how to use it.

In 2024, AI was among the top five terms searched in PwC's internal learning and development platform, compared to being in the top 15 in 2023 and not even in the top 100 in 2022, PwC represenatives told BI.

"The cognitive load that it takes to just try something new in the course of doing what you're normally doing is hard," Houde said, adding that many employees just didn't know where to start with AI prompts, which are the written instructions given to an AI tool in order to elicit a useful response.

People needed a safe, low-stakes place to play with the tools. That's where the AI prompting parties came in.

The group sessions, which can be run independently amongst teams or by a company AI leader, are aimed at making employees comfortable using AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatPwC — the company's internal version of ChatGPT.

The sessions focus on real use cases, so employees can collaboratively experiment with using AI to help them solve a problem or accomplish a task that's specific to their team.

Houde said the sessions are like a "playground where I'm not working on a client deliverable or writing an email to my boss or something that might give me anxiety that I don't want to mess up with AI."

She said experimenting in a group setting also allows employees to learn from each others' prompts, giving them new ideas about what AI can do. It's also made them more likely to try out AI on their own time too, Houde said.

Since launching in March, PwC said it has hosted nearly 500 prompting parties and over 880 more have been requested, so they are scaling up to meet the demand.

Houde said becoming familiar with AI was especially important for employees at PwC as a professional services firm, since the company's clients often turn to its employees to get their own questions about AI answered.

Workforce experts previously told BI's Tim Paradis that getting employees up to speed with AI is necessary, and that it will require the help and investment of employers.

A survey published by Slack in November found the rate of AI adoption among desk workers had plateaued, despite companies continuing to invest heavily in AI for their business.

But Houde said it's not just AI or other technical skills that employees at PwC want more training on. Terms like "inclusion" and "inclusive mindset" are among the top searched on the company's training platform every year.

"The thing that it says to me is that the human interaction is always going to matter," she said.

Going forward, Houde said she's most excited about how AI can be used to create personalized learning and development plans for people based on their current skills and where they want to go in their careers.

Instead of generically recommending the same trainings to everyone, AI can flag trainings that are most relevant to each individual.

"AI is now enabling us to understand the skills our people have and make connections between the skills that they have and the skills that they're going to need to progress," Houde said.

Have a news tip or a story to share? Do you work in consulting or have you worked with a consulting career coach? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.

• The Big Four firms reported revenue growth in 2024, but consulting lagged behind other services.
• The firms reported more growth in tax and legal services as demand for consulting slowed.
• PwC cited market factors and political uncertainty as reasons for slower growth in consulting.

The Big Four professional-services firms — PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG — all reported revenue growth this year, but growth in their consulting arms lagged compared with their other services.

After experiencing a boom during the pandemic, the consulting industry has faced economic headwinds and slowing demand over the past couple of years. Major firms have conducted layoffs, delayed start dates, and cut partner pay.

Financial reports released by the Big Four professional-services firms throughout the year indicated that their consulting arms grew slightly, but not as much as their legal, tax, and assurance businesses.

In October, PwC said several factors were contributing to the slower growth in consulting.

"A continuing slow market for mergers and acquisitions, sluggish economic growth in a number of key markets and political uncertainty holding back investment in some key projects meant that the growth of our advisory operations slowed over the last twelve months," its report said.

KPMG, the last Big Four firm to report 2024 financials, reported the highest overall revenue growth, at 5.1% year over year.

Here's a breakdown of how the Big Four firms performed this year.

Deloitte

• Fiscal year end: May 2024
• Global revenue: $67.2 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.1%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 8.7%
  • Audit and assurance: 4.1%
  • Consulting: 1.9%
  • Financial advisory: - 3.8%
  • Risk advisory: 3.2%

PwC

• Fiscal year end: June 2024
• Global revenue: $55.4 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.7%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 6.3%
  • Assurance: 3.4%
  • Advisory: 2.6%

EY

• Fiscal year end: June 2024
• Global revenue: $51.2 billion
• Revenue growth year over year: 3.9%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Assurance: 6.3%
  • Tax: 6.3%
  • Strategy and transactions: 2.3%
  • Consulting: 0.1%

KPMG

• Fiscal year end: September 2024
• Global revenue: $38.4 billion
• Revenue growth, year-over-year: 5.1%

• Revenue growth by category:

  • Tax and legal: 9.6%
  • Audit: 6.2%
  • Advisory: 2%

Have a news tip or a story to share? Do you work in consulting? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.

• The Big Four — EY, Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC — are the world's largest accounting and consulting firms.
• They pull in billions annually but have faced a slowdown in demand for their services.
• This is how the Big Four have performed in recent years, and how they're looking to adapt in future.

Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC are the world's largest accounting and consulting firms, known as the Big Four.

With histories dating back to the 19th century, they have grown into billion-dollar companies employing hundreds of thousands of staff who earn high salaries and often work very long hours.

The Big Four offer companies services such as workforce transformations, reshaping corporate finance portfolios, assurance, valuation, and optimizing the use of technology.

Put simply, they're there to assess businesses and tell them how to run more efficiently.

The pandemic changed the landscape for the major firms, with a surge in demand that sparked a hiring boom. The Big Four are now attempting to balance operations amid slowing demand.

Here's a look at where the Big Four stand.

EY

After a series of mergers, EY was formed in 1989 as the accountancy firm Ernst & Young. It has since diversified its offerings and, in 2013, rebranded to EY.

Headquartered in central London, EY has more than 700 offices in 150 countries. Janet Truncale, the global chair and CEO, took over from Carmine Di Sibio in July.

EY focuses heavily on consultancy and assurance but also covers tax and strategy, and transactions.

Revenue was up 3.9% on the previous year to $51.2 billion, according to the firm's latest annual report published in October. It was EY's poorest performance since 2010. Assurance services were its largest revenue generator.

In May 2024, the firm was caught up in a scandal along with PwC and fined $11.7 million by UK authorities for a series of auditing failures.

As pressure has mounted, EY cut UK partner payouts by 5% and laid off employees. Overall employee numbers dropped by 2,450 during EY's latest financial year — the first decrease in 14 years.

EY's global head count now stands at about 393,000.

In 2023, the firm launched EY.ai, an AI platform aiming to assist clients across all its professional services. It also offers clients a conversational AI assistant called EYQ.

Deloitte

Deloitte is the largest of the Big Four by both revenue and employees.

Founded in the UK in 1845, Deloitte expanded into the US in 1890. It is headquartered in London and has more than 700 offices in some 150 countries. It's known for strong business and technology consulting services.

Joe Ucuzoglu has been its global CEO since 2022.

In March, Deloitte announced a major restructuring aimed at cutting costs and repositioning it for future success.

It is "modernizing and simplifying" its core offering into four categories: audit and assurance, tax and legal strategy, risk and transactions, and technology and transformation.

Global revenue climbed 3.1% to $67.2 billion in the 2024 financial year, but, like EY, that performance was far lower than the 14.9% growth in 2023.

The slowdown has affected partner payouts, which fell by 4.5% to about $1.27 million. Equity partners took home roughly $63,000 less than they did a year ago.

Deloitte's global workforce expanded to 460,000 in 2024, an increase of 3,000.

Deloitte has pledged to invest $3 billion in AI by fiscal year 2030 and has partnered with technology industry leaders Nvidia, Google Cloud, and AWS to develop its client offering.

PwC

PwC is often considered the most prestigious of the Big Four, and topped the latest Vault Accounting 25 ranking.

Officially formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, PwC's headquarters is almost opposite EY's main office in London.

Mohamed Kande has been the global chairman since July.

PwC has three core lines of business — assurance, advisory, and tax and legal services — but the firm is particularly known for its strong and well-established audit client base.

It employs more than 370,000 people in 149 countries and territories.

In 2021, PwC committed to creating over 100,000 net new jobs over a five-year period, and in October 2024, it said it had already hit three-quarters of that target.

PwC was the second-highest earning of the Big Four, posting record gross revenue of $55.4 billion and 3.7% annual growth in the year to June 30.

Though not as stark a slowdown as Deloitte or EY, growth at PwC still dropped noticeably compared to the 9.9% rise reported for the previous 12 months.

A number of high-profile scandals in the Asia-Pacific region involving its work with the Australian and Chinese governments damaged business.

To handle the changing environment, PwC cut partner pay by 5%, leaving partners taking home an average of $1.09 million this financial year.

In October The Wall Street Journal reported that the firm would make its first major layoffs since 2009 and cut 1,800 jobs.

PwC has invested $1.5 billion to expand and scale its AI capabilities. In February 2024, it unveiled a tax AI assistant for 2,300 PwC tax professionals in the UK to use.

KPMG

The smallest of the Big Four in terms of revenue and employees, KPMG is headquartered in Amsterdam and has a long-serving leader in chairman and chief executive Bill Thomas.

Its core services cover audit, tax and legal, and advisory.

The last of the Big Four to report its 2024 results, KPMG reported in December that in the 12 months to September 30, it saw revenues of $38.4 billion, a rise of just over 5% compared to 2023.

Overall, its revenues are the lowest among the Big Four, close to $20 billion less than its three competitors.

KPMG has faced scrutiny across several markets for its auditing and accounting work. In 2023, it was fined a record $26 million in the UK after "exceptional" failures in its accounting work.

Employee numbers grew by just over 1% in the 2024 financial year to reach 275,000. That's 185,000 people fewer than Deloitte.

Over 2024, KPMG has made a series of layoffs. About 330 staff, or 4%, were cut from its US audit practice; 5% cut across advisory, tax, and back-office functions; and 2% from its advisory workforce in 2023, according to Accountancy Age.

KPMG said it is looking to invest more in specialist roles in areas like ESG, tax, and technology.

While it lags behind in revenues, the firm is seen to foster a less cutthroat workplace than its competitors. The firm has said it aims to have women in a third of partner or director roles by 2025.

According to its latest report, women hold 29.9% of leadership roles.

What's your experience of working at the Big Four accountancy firms? Contact this reporter in confidence at pthompson@businessinsider.com

• The "Big Four" accounting firms employ about 1.5 million people worldwide. 
• Many of these employees make six-figure salaries and are eligible for annual bonuses.  
• Business Insider analyzed data to determine how much employees are paid at these firms. 

The so called "Big Four" accounting firms — Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY) — are known for paying their staff high salaries. 

An entry-level consultant who just graduated from business school can make over $200,000 a year at the four firms when you include base salary, bonuses, and relocation expenses. 

Several of these firms have faced layoffs and implemented hiring freezes over the past year as demand for consulting services has waned. Still, they're a good bet for anyone looking to land a six-figure job straight out of school. 

Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification's 2023 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte paid US-based employees for jobs ranging from entry-level to executive roles. We looked through entries specifically for roles related to management consulting and accounting. This data does not reflect performance bonuses, signing bonuses, and compensation other than base salaries.

Here's how much Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY paid their hires.  

Deloitte paid senior managers between $91,603 to $288,000

With 457,000 employees worldwide, Deloitte employs the most people of any of the 'Big Four.' It pulled in close to $64.9 billion in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 9.4% increase from 2022.

Deloitte did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consulting and accounting roles: 

• Analyst: $49,219 to $337,500 (includes advisory, business, project delivery, management, and systems)
• Senior business analyst: $97,739 
• Audit and assurance senior assistant: average $58,895
• Consultant: $54,475 to $125,000 (includes advisory, technology strategy, and strategic services)  
• Global business process lead: $180,000 
• Senior consultant: average $122,211
• Manager: average $152,971
• Tax manager: average $117,268
• Senior manager: $91,603 to $288,000  
• Managing director: average $326,769
• Tax managing director: average $248,581
• Principal: $225,000 to $875,000

Principals at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) can make well over $1 million.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a global professional services firm with over 370,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported a revenue of more than $53 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5.6% increase from 2022. 

PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for both consulting and accounting roles. 

• Associate: $68,000 to $145,200
• Senior associate: $72,000 to $197,000 
• Manager: $114,300 to $231,000
• Senior manager: $142,000 to $251,000 
• Director: $165,000 to $400,000  
• Managing director: $260,000 to $330,600
• Principal: $1,081,182 to $1,376,196

KPMG offers managing directors anywhere between $230,000 to $485,000

KPMG has over 273,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported a revenue of $36 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5% increase from 2022. 

KPMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, and leadership at KPMG. 

• Associate: $61,000 to $140,000
• Senior associate: $66,248 to $215,000
• Director: $155,600 to $260,000
• Associate director: $155,700 to $196,600 
• Specialist director: $174,000 to $225,000
• Lead specialist: $140,500 to $200,000
• Senior specialist: $134,000 to $155,000
• Manager: $99,445 to $293,800
• Senior manager: $110,677 to $332,800
• Managing director: $230,000 to $485,000

Statisticians at Ernst & Young (EY) make salaries ranging between $66,000 to $283,500.

EY employs close to 400,000 people worldwide. For the 2023 fiscal year, the firm reported a record revenue of $49.4 billion, marking a 9.3% jump from 2022. 

The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.

Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, auditors, and chief executives at the firm: 

• Accountants and auditors: $54,000 to $390,000
• Appraisers and assessors of real estate: $166,626 to $185,444
• Computer systems analyst: $62,000 to $367,510
• Management analyst: $49,220 to $337,500
• Statistician: $66,000 to $283,500
• Financial risk specialist: $62,000 to $342,400
• Actuaries: $84,800 to $291,459
• Economist: $77,000 to $141,000
• Logisticians: $72,000 t0 $275,000
• Mathematicians: $165,136 to $377,000
• Computer and information systems manager: $136,167 to $600,000
• Financial manager: average $320,000

Aman Kidwai and Weng Cheong contributed to an earlier version of this post. 

• Dozens of UK partners at PwC will take early retirement in December, Sky News reported.
• The larger-than-usual cohort comes as Big Four firms grapple with declining revenues.
• Partner payouts at PwC also took a hit this year, declining by 5%.

More PwC partners than usual will take early retirement at the end of this year, marking another shake-up at the firm's UK division since the appointment of a new boss, Marco Amitrano, in Spring.

PwC's 1,030 UK partners were informed this week via a voice memo from Amitrano that dozens of partners would take early retirement next month, Sky News reported.

The cohort of early retirees was larger than usual, though one insider disputed that the numbers involved were "significant," Sky News reported.

The Big Four firm appointed 60 new UK partners earlier this year.

Senior employees at the Big Four consultancies — Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC, all of which are privately held — can be promoted to partners, and some are offered equity ownership in the business. In addition to salary and bonuses, equity partners traditionally receive a share of annual profits.

The jump in partners taking early retirement follows a series of changes following Amitrano's elevation to senior partner for the UK and Middle East in April.

Amitrano has launched an overhaul of operations in the UK, including creating a standalone technology and artificial intelligence unit and merging other parts of the business to create six new teams, the FT reported in October.

Almost all the major consulting firms have been grappling with a slowdown in business this year following the end of the pandemic-era rush on advisory services. The firms have been restructuring divisions, laying off employees, and making cuts to limit revenue decline.

Partner payouts have been one area targeted for cuts at EY, Deloitte, and PwC. UK partners at PwC took home an average of £862,000 (about $1.1 million) this financial year, 5% less than they did in 2023.

PwC, which is the largest of the Big Four by revenue in the UK, is also facing higher taxes per employee after the country's recently elected Labour government increased the rate of national insurance contributions (a tax on earnings) employers must pay.

PwC declined to comment.

Do you work at PwC? Contact this reporter in confidence to share your thoughts on the industry at pthompson@businessinsider.com