Hi There I currently work for EY Advisory and I can shed some light in the ITA space. For ITA we are not doing so well because we are heavily reliant on 1.5 clients (one private and the other public). In the public sector we have had a big bashing. Major ramp downs and pressure because of the new collation government leading to consultant head count reduction and pricing pressure in other programmes we have. It will be really interesting to see what the spending plan presents because this will lead the swing in either direction - new opportunities or government work will die down until Labour comes back into power and kick starts it spending spree. In the private sector yes things are picking up, but only small things in other parts of Advisory. For ITA we just go after everything and anything, close our eyes and prey. Yes morale is very low because there is a nice bench fermenting (in Advisory and ITA) and it is getting bigger as each week goes by. Further more when you see this happening and you hear the leadership presenting big growth plans, lots of client work happening (not) and major purists happening (all failing) something doesn’t add up. On the recruitment front yes ITA has been doing a lot of recruitment to support of their ambitious growth target plans. Most of the new arrivals have been sitting in the office for the last 2-3 months wondering what is going on and where is all the ITA client work that the partner said to me during the interview. What is interesting is the diversity of consultants that we have bought in since January, 95% of I would say are all from Accenture when reading the new joiners email. Furthermore our culture is pretty poor, what do you expect when a majority of the new arrivals are from Accenture. As for bonuses, yes they have mentioned they will be introducing a scheme called variable pay. This will kick in next year October provided that Advisory and the practices within meet their targets. Chances of that happening will be 50/50 because there are some groups within Advisory that will bring others down. If we do get bonuses next year it will be low (2-3%) and will take 2-3 years until we can achieve 10%. The downside is that something will have to give because EY has not operated a bonus scheme, therefore (heard on the grapevine) either pay bands are being reduced slowly each year to build up a bonus pot and some service lines said no pay rises for the next few years unless you are promoted.Career development wise in ITA is a tough one, you either do have one or you don’t depending on the type of individual you are or what is your technical skill set. Some will have a good career others realise that we are a bunch of cowboys because we have no idea what we are doing. No idea how to develop career paths for people, just set up fancy practice names to lure you in and the only way to solve client problems is throwing resources at it and hope for the best (hence why we fail or upset the client most of the time). There are better options and established ITA firms within professional services and SI market. Think very carefully if you want to join EY ITA because the future is not very clear as a practice.
