I've got a first round interview with Accenture as a Graduate Analyst in their Business Consulting section - with a view to moving into strategy. I know it is early days, but i am a bit concerned by all the war stories of massive, extended trips appearing on here.I recognise that travel is part of the job, and my current role in a small Pharma start up has seen me being sent all over, however my home life is very important to me and i want to know what to expect so i can talk it thorugh in detail with my other half. Tony, what's your insight into this?

the key in your question ( i work for acn strategy) is as follows1) will you be in bsi / or strategy 2) what operating group if you will be in systems integration (technology consulting) you will likely be out of london 90% of your time, and depending on your grade, mostly UK basedyour chances of staying away from home will increase exponentially if you are in Government (NHS) or CHT (comms and high tech). Resources and products - a bit of travel, and financial services is mostly london based. if i can give you some advice: if you are interested in not moving around, then dont come. if you join in technology consulting you will definetely be traveling a LOT of your time. take this statistic to help you out. there are 20,000 accenture employees in UK. Our offices can hold a maximum of 4,750. That gives you an idea of how many people do not sleep in thier own bed!

Have to disagree with the post above re C&HT travel requirement.I recently left ACN after 4 years in C&HT (comms and hi tech) as a consultant. My experience wasn't unique (most of my C&HT colleagues had similar) and involved working 80% of the time in London or on the M25 / M4 corridor (commutable from London at a push). I spent short stints in Birmingham but most of my work was for clients in London, with spells in Croydon (joy of joys), 'exotic' Slough, Newbury and Reading. These glam locations are where most of the big telco clients are based or have major operations.For me, Reading was about as far as it got for longer-term assignments, and some projects let consultants and analysts stay in hotels locally (down the discretion of the project management). I always chose to drive back to London daily if things weren't too hectic - though this did involve 6.30am starts and regular 11pm returns home.Had the travel requirement been as heavy in ACN C&HT as it was in say, Resources or Products (I had friends in India, Middle East and Scotland for long periods of time), I probably wouldn't have stuck with the job for 4 years. I would reiterate the point above that if you are in a market unit other than Financial Services or C&HT and dislike travel, you are probably in the wrong place.Good luck with your decision, I empathise.

Thanks Acnman, Definitely food for thought - how much travel would you say the strategy side of things involves from your experience? Is it comparable to BSI or less?

Hi ex-ACN,I've just got an offer with C&HT as a CRM strat consultant, I appreciate there's no major long-distance travel, but I have a little one at home and I can't afford to stay away from 6 to 11 pm, is this a practice or just exception? What about flexi-time? Do you anyone who works from home from time to time?

This is definitely one of the worst aspects of being a consultant for a big firm - the unpredictable nature of the travel. It makes it almost impossible to plan any kind of regular event, e.g. making commitments to friends and family or joining a local sports club. Not to mention the fact that living out of a suitcase quickly becomes a drag.Makes you wonder why highly qualified people do it for such mediocre salaries, really.

Travel is becoming a major concern for me at the moment, despite only being in the game for a year. After nearly playing professional sport after uni I realised I was never quite good enough to make any serious money so joined the rat race of consulting, thinking i could stay fit, squeeze in regular weekend fixtures at a decent cluba dn enjoy my sport whilst I am young enough.Sadly I'm a mess, unfit as yuo can get, working almost like a banker and earning less than half their salary for the same relative position! I might move towards corp finance in an accountancy firm to try and be more London based so at least when I do have kids one day i'll be able to see them (albeit they'll be asleep) rather than the inside of a hotel room 4 nights a week!