In the 2006/2007 edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers in the opening section they compare the number of graduates different sectors are taking on this year. Investment Banks and the Big 4 Professional Services firms are growing but this year the amount of places in Management Consulting is shrinking. Is this an important signification?ie does the road ahead look less bright, is demand for consultancy decreasing or is this just a blip? Any insight warmly appreciated.

My big question would be how were these figures compiled in the first place? By and large, consulting firms do not publish official figures on the number of graduates they are going to hire. So if anyone is able to produce figures relating to this then I'd assume it's based on some sample of firms that they've spoken to - and that the firms have provided unaudited figures. Beware of any set of statistics based on a sample!From what I'm hearing from consulting firms, there are two things to note on the graduate recruitment front. Firstly, consulting firms' clients are demanding teams of consultants that have a greater experience profile - ie. fewer fresh faced graduates and a greater number of experienced consultants on each team. So this IS putting downwards pressure on the number of graduates being hired each year (and upwards pressure on the number of experienced hires that need to be hired, hence the current recruitment frenzy).However, the second factor far outweighs this. A couple of years ago the consulting sector was still reeling from the consulting recession and graduate intakes were cut right down out of prudence. In the last year the industry has grown 18% in the UK - and it's continuing to grow at double-digit rates. This growth means that although the % of the workforce made up of new graduates may have declined, the absolute demand to hire new graduates is still very buoyant - double-digit growth means an awful lot of people need to be hired in an industry that employs ~70,000 in the UK alone!So not a time to be overly glum about graduate prospects in the consulting market I would say.Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com)

I'd be careful in interpreting the survey results, Ludwig. Firstly, last year was a BUMPER year for grad recruitment into consulting. Secondly, KPMG, E&Y and PwC are all rebuilding their consulting capabilities; Deloitte never quit the sector. All four are therefore contributing to recruitment of "management consultants".It's not unreasonable to assume, say, between 10% and 25% of new grads in those firms will be consultants rather than accountants.I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this may go some way to reversing the apparent decline in recruitment...