PwC announced payrises this week and despite claims by our leadership that they understood how far off the market we were and that this would be rectified I can say everyone I have spoken to is far from happy. Our esteemed leader Ashley Unwin even made the claim that he thought we would all be very happy with the rises.My question is, given the ambitous headcount growth targets PwC have stated they want to hire (and given that we have had our best year in Consulting) how can they possibly achieve their growth targets when with numbers like these they will loose through attrition almost as many as they will recruit.

Never - this is the same story within a different company.Partners come first, then the employees.Growth targets can easily be corrected according to the recent economic climate, pay rises can´t! :-)If you want a significant salary growth, then it´s mostly achieved by switching the chairs.Good luck!

By the crude measure of (wages & salaries / number of employees), PwC pays better than Deloitte, although you can scarcely get a sheet of paper between them.All the HR departments compare notes and "benchmark" / conspire to pay the same. Not sure how much attrition there will be, nor if they care anyway - they need people to leave to keep the pyramid in shape, especially with 1000 grads joining every year.

what a joke reward packages were this year!!!!!

Yep most of my team are now talking to EY - PwC are keeping everyone at the bottom of the pay band whereas EY are offering to bring people in between the middle/top end of the bracket.

After such a strong year I hate to think what would happen in a bad year. It is clear the firm have complete disregard for the staff and believe the 'brand' is worth more than pay. They feel they can replace staff faster than people leaving and are not bothered about the attrition rate. After being here a few years I can confirm it is an awful culture.

KPMG have also low balled their staff too. EY do seem to pay above market rates for new joiners, but the quality of their staff and projects is somewhat variable. Lots of folk on the bench too

I&apos;ve just published a new editorial piece discussing this very issue: "<a href=http://bit.ly/9Mdooc>Consulting: an industry that can no longer pay its way</a>" Would be interested to hear whether this resonates with the way you&apos;re seeing firms address the remuneration issue...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Yes EY do pay better than PWC/KPMG however they do not offer bonuses. Speaking recently to a few PWC staff the bonuses announced this year are v.poor, a Senior Consultant on a 1 rating got 2.5k! <5% of their salary. More work for us recruiters i suppose!

I totally agree with Tony&apos;s analysis.One key issue not addressed though is why most consultancies can&apos;t charge more. For me it&apos;s because what they do is not so valuable/valued by customers. The MBB can still charge high prices for their services, even when they don&apos;t work on strategy. But when you sell people on non business critical projects doing process mapping or writing functional specifications customers look hard at the costs.To sum up when you sell monkeys you get peanuts

I think a point that Tony misses is that the rise of the offshore players has completely changed the market price for low end consulting work. This has had an effect on the market price for other volume work associated with operational consulting. I&apos;m unsure that market prices will ever recover and what we are now seeing is a change in the industry. Average of consultants will get higher, there&apos;ll be more locally sold work and so less travel, wages will be lower etc

I agree with Tony&apos;s points and those added by feewhoer. Consulting used to pay more than industry roles requiring equivalent years eperience - this is no longer the case. Whilst we are seeing an industry shift, it remains to be seen whether firms can respond to that in a way which props rates up and protects profits. I know at least my own firm has introduced a strategy to deal with the challenges to profit Tony describes.

I don&apos;t agree that the problems are demand-side to the extent is claimed - at least, it&apos;s not the case in this organisation.Rather, partners have become used to 40% margins and in the current economic circumstances have applied pressure on the cost base to maintain those margins - rather than allow the margins to flex.Over the past decade, steady growth in revenue has seen salaries grow at about the same rate as the Average Earnings Index (c.4% pa) while profit per partner has diverged dramatically.Let&apos;s not be naive. They will pay you as little possible. You are merely an item of plant to be put to work to generate cash; if you require more input for a given amount of output you are just like an intem of plant that requires more fuel and is more expensive to run. This will continue until people get fed up and leave.For most firms it&apos;s not can&apos;t pay, it&apos;s won&apos;t pay.

Can confirm salaries and bonuses were absolutely horrifying. Though oddly partner profits have increased significantly.

Yep and it is starting to show with a number of people having already handed their notice in.I&apos;ve heard of 4 Snr Consultants (Snr Manager in other Big4) handing in their notice and that&apos;s just with in the team I work in.

I&apos;m in the offer stage for PwC, presently with one of the other Big4. Looking to go in at botton end of PwC Senior Consultant / Senior Manager at the others... Given what I&apos;m reading, got to make the most of the financial gain of shifting seats. Is 80-85k (basic) a silly number to be asking for?

id say yes considering the bottom of that bracket is 60k