PwC slashes 200 graduate roles amid UK slowdown
PwC’s UK graduate intake has dropped, with its boss citing poor productivity as driving the firm’s cut in young talent. While AI has inevitably been cited as a contributing factor in the shift, it comes as the consulting industry’s top players face a sustained slowdown in growth.
In its last global set of annual accounts, PwC reported that its member firms around the world had raked in gross revenues of $55.4 billion, growing by 3.7% in local currency and 4.3% in US dollars. The previous year had seen gross revenues of $53.1 billion – a leap of $2.3 billion, which many outside the firm might think was not to be sniffed at.
But the rise was slower than the previous years. In 2023, revenue had risen to $53.1 billion from $50.3 the year before, and from $45.1 billion the year before that. Those booms had resulted from spikes in demand, which PwC had hired to meet – and that growth has since plateaued, meaning the firm has higher internal costs, while its revenues are not just exponentially rising. Again, this might not sound disastrous to many other firms – but as it results in narrowing profit margins, partner pay-outs may be inconvenienced.
So, while for decades the consulting sector has prided itself as being an excellent place for graduate talent to gain business savvy, while continuing to learn on the job, this year one of its largest players is cutting its intake. PwC’s UK wing will welcome 200 fewer entry-level positions, leaving many Gen Z graduates facing greater challenges in launching their careers.
The firm’s UK chief has suggested that that graduate hiring is “under pressure” due to advancing technology and global economic headwinds. In a recent LinkedIn post, Marco Amitrano claimed that AI was “reshaping roles”, while “global markets remain volatile”.
“At PwC, our entry-level numbers are lower this year, reflecting the wider slowdown in investment, hiring and deal-making across the economy,” he added.
Lower intake
Ironically, Amitrano is a former PwC entry-level arrival – having joined the firm via a route he has made more difficult some 33 years later. But the reduction of intake from 1,500 to 1,300 this year may not be the end of the matter. In a separate piece for The Times, he has also suggested he sees this as a long-term trend, particularly in relation to AI.
“Innovation in AI is certainly reshaping roles,” he argued. “For now, the development of new tools and the parallel investment in skills are offsetting more serious disruption… Yet this balance may not last forever. Our research shows that job postings for AI-exposed occupations are growing at a slower pace compared to those with lower exposure – and this gap is widening.”
Amitrano also cited struggling productivity as the single biggest contributor behind a lower graduate intake at PwC this year, before noting that the economic picture has not helped. With domestic and international businesses “watching and waiting,” activity was still “far removed from the levels of investment, hiring and deal-making that we saw immediately after the pandemic.”
As a result, the firm seems to be preparing for further cuts to graduate roles. In the US, Business Insider has reported on documents planning to reduce entry-level hiring by almost one-third over the coming three years. And AI is expected to bridge the capacity gap this leave.
Hype and reality
But while the technology remains overtly hyped according to its alleged productivity benefits, reality has yet to live up to that apparent promise. A recent MIT study suggested 95% of AI pilots were failing to produce a return on investment, even as a slew of companies made similar announcements to PwC.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff admitted in August that he had cut 4,000 workers from his firm’s headcount as he believed AI could make up for the lost labour. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said earlier that AI will lead to there being a need for fewer workers at the e-commerce giant. But payments platform Klarna recently rowed back on its own commitments to an ‘inevitable’ AI future, when it began rehiring people, having jumped the gun trying to automate their roles.
As well as failing to produce much in the way of productivity gains in the short term, AI replacement may also result in long-term systemic issues for companies. Chiefly, that it will stifle the consulting sector’s pipeline for producing the next generation of leaders.
“Graduate roles are intended to be necessary training for the industry professionals of tomorrow,” Jon Bance, chief operating officer at Leading Resolutions, an independent technology advisory firm, recently told Consultancy.uk. “Replacing graduates entirely with AI tools may be a short-term fix and efficiency burst, but ultimately damaging to the industry long-term, as talent is no longer gaining experience.”
Despite this, PwC was recently voted as one of the UK’s top graduate employers. Ranking second overall after the Civil Service, the firm was the top private sector employer in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers survey for 2025; a ranking based on interviews with over 15,000 final year students at 30 UK universities.
