Hot take: Unless you are in MBB or select tier 2, I don’t think consulting in London is worth doing long term. Every other tier (Big 4, specialist, or tier 3) is only fair to do a few years before exiting to a brand name in the industry or into MBB/ brand name tier 2. Why: Outside the top tier, pay is not competitive despite hours. Path to partnership is increasingly uncertain. Even as Partner at a smaller firm/big 4, the effort to pay ratio is not great. Thoughts?
I’ve done the classic path of consulting to fintech generalist (Strategy & Ops, Corp Strategy, etc.), and really all I’ve learnt is that I should have specialised at uni (finance, engineering, law) Now it’s been a few years and I can keep going but it will be a slow upward trajectory (promotion every 2-3 years if all goes well) Where next for ex-consulting, ex-fintech people? All I have is a generic project management skill at this point. Is startup the only way to making actual money?
As a consultant (3 YOE) is it normal to find majority of my colleagues incompetent / lacking basic common sense? Is it a sign I am I in the wrong firm / profession? I really don't mean to be arrogant / rude but I can't help but find it mind boggling how some of my colleagues manage to get this far and consider them borderline con artist. Is this a normal feeling?
Honestly, who here still cares about the whole WLB line? I’m tired of managers acting like we should be grateful because supposedly we work fewer hours than people in other countries. If it’s 2050, I’m still on £70k, and my monthly train ticket costs £1k, are we seriously still going to pretend it’s all worth it just because we work 20 fewer hours a week than people in other countries?
If I could get a job in industry (A&D for me) that pays like £140k then I’d probably take it. But have not spotted any yet. On the point about hours. I’d say my job was hard but manageable. And the absolute sh*tshow which our economy has become makes me think we deff need the money. I would also say, in my sector I am very unimpressed by the contribution of MBB. All they do is carve up our historic companies or they make a mess of top down re-orgs because they don’t understand enough about how the sector works.
Tbh even MBB when they reached out do not have higher base, just much better bonus. And I already don’t see my kids enough!
MBB are still primarily strategy consulting companies. The work is different. I've had limited engagement with them, but seeing them do actual delivery is interesting and has been quite unimpressive. Also have you done strategy work? It's not for everyone, but attracts a lot of people for the generous reward. I much prefer "operations" and execution as a they like to call it. Much more fun. My job has peaks and troughs, but is largely 9-5pm, interesting and not that difficult. Pay is £100k+ non-London. Would I swap for an M&A/Private Equity job in my field for £160k+ ? Maybe, maybe not. Not sure the 14 hour days are worth it. A lot more to consider than the salary. The game isn't a sprint. I wouldn't call it a marathon. It's HIIT. Careful how you do it or you burn out and run out of options. You can't go hard all the time, unless your plan is to be fat, unhealthy, no family, no friends. I'm more likely to move to a specialist or boutique (with equity) consulting organisation where I'll receive a 20-30% pay bump. That feels like a good middle ground. I think your question, not to sound condescending, highlights that you don't really understand the breadth and depth of consulting and what the industry actually is. You're predictably looking at MBB in a marketing sense, like fresh from business school chatter by a bunch of undergrads that basically gossip and pretend they are on the bleeding edge of markets and economics. Clients buy a lot more consulting work of a wide variety than you think.
This response seems to have missed the point. For context, I have done both strategy and operational work (working in a specialist boutique), and also interfaced with MBB at some of my clients. Currently, I work at a global investment bank. So no doubts on the “breadth” of work clients buy. My statement is purely from a personal optimization perspective. If your consulting job is largely 9-5, then I would say you’re the exception in the industry, not the norm. Even at my boutique, I had regular 10/12/14 hour days, without benefiting from a commensurate brand or pay. Equally, not all jobs you exit into will be 14+ hour days as you assume. In the experiences of a lot of my network who moved to a large industry player or MBB, their working hours remained large similar or often improved. Same effort, better CV positioning, and much more pay. Not to mention, the odds of someone getting an equity offer from a specialist consultancy increases manifold with a record of success in a large industry player or MBB. In short, my original statement was trying to illustrate that spending 10 years at an MBB or big industry name not only just pays you more for the same effort, but also opens up more options in the long term (including equity in a smaller consultancy). In the same vein, 10 years at a lesser known consultancy or Big 4 leaves one of two things on the table - 1. pay or 2. CV legitimacy.
I get paid £100k/year and have nice hours on fairly interesting projects. I’ll jump if the opportunity is there but otherwise I’m pretty comfortable
Do you know rough salary bands for M/SM/AD grades since the title changes?
I'm with you. I should have jumped in 2020 when FAANG and SaaS companies were hiring ex-consultants like crazy and at crazy rates. Now they won't look at us.
Definitely - exits into big tech or big banks if possible can be very lucrative. Even with long hours, incentive is much better.