PWC, Deloitte or KPMG

Hello,

I have offers for audit with PWC, Deloitte and KPMG in London. I am particularly interested in auditing banking or related clients and, if possible, do not want to work excessive hours (although I am aware that hours are long during the busy season). Does anyone have any experience of working at any of these firms and could point me in the direction of one over the others as I am finding it difficult to differentiate between them? Are the hours better at one? Is one more friendly than the others? Would experience in one be seen as preferable when applying for other jobs in the future? I would be very grateful for any advice. Thank you.

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Reply 1

uk_chip

i applied to all.. got kpmg and pwc.. from what i saw PWC is a much more 'fun' company to be with.. its whole presentation is much better than the others.. its also the top firm so i would assume it has the highest prestige.. you can probs see i will be going with pwc lol

Reply 2

Bwilson803

I work for PwC .. and it's deffinately fun, the people are really good which makes the occasional long hours fly by.

Also .. if your interested in auditing financial services clients (which is what I do) then we have Lloyds TSB, Barclays, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Zurich Insurance, AXA .. you kind of get the idea .. we have a very developed FS practice (depending on what office you work in ... i.e. either London or Bristol).

Although I am a little biased ... I would definately recommend PwC .. !!

Reply 3

Nabster_88

Banking clients are normally the ones with the longest hours...correct me if i'm wrong??

Reply 4

Bwilson803

Haha .. yeah .. working in Financial Services does have a bit of a reputation .. but the only time the hours really get long are during the busy season .. so between December and April ... other than that it is almost normal working hours.

But it does depend on what you're booked to .. and what position you have on the jobs, i.e. a first year Associate won't have to work as many hours as an In-charge for example. As long as your working with a good team you hardly notice it though ..

Reply 5

Barny

Fly by? Bit optimistic :smile:

You don't usually count the hours in accountancy but to say you have so much fun you don't notice the time is a huge exageration in my opinion.

Reply 6

krisstassen

rabbitus

Do u know what salaries they are offering

Reply 7

Bwilson803

Yeah i know its a bit of a wierd concept .. but do really find that the time goes a lot quicker when you're working with a good team .. perhaps its just a personal thing.

PwC starting for first year Associates in Bristol this year was about £20,500 .. and in London I think it was around £26,000 ... but not to sure exactly.

Reply 8

theis

I am particularly interested in auditing banking or related clients and, if possible, do not want to work excessive hours

Sorry, the above sentence doesn't really seem to work.

Reply 9

rabbitus

Thank you all for your comments. They are very helpful.
Someone asked about salaries. They are all pretty similar, in the £26,000-£26,500 bracket, with pay reviews pending for 2008 for PWC and Deloitte. KPMG pays the least (but offers bonus from year two and a lunch allowance), PWC pays the most but has less holiday. You can have 30 days holiday at PWC if you take a slight pay cut. I am less concerned about salary though, as there is very little difference. I am more interested in hours and how friendly the people are. I read on here somewhere that people auditing banks at KPMG had been working quite a few times to 2am which does not sound too appealing (too much sleep deprivation does not sound a good idea). PWC said the latest you would work is 10pm-1am and then only for say four weeks of the busy season and Deloitte said 9-midnight max and only midnight in extreme cases where the audit was behind schedule or there were serious problems. On that basis, KPMG seems the least appealing. At the interview, the PWC partner seemed the friendliest but then I speak to people from KPMG and Deloitte and they say the people who work there are very friendly.

Reply 10

rabbitus

On another matter, does anyone know if PWC or Deloitte have made redundancies in recent years in (financial services) audit or they are likely to do so? I found these articles about KPMG from 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2131066.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/kpmg-to-cut-700-uk-jobs-due-to-market-downturn-648435.html

but I cannot find any similar references to job losses at PWC or Deloitte so I am assuming that no redundancies have been made at these firms (thus making these preferable). I would have thought that audit was fairly secure as it is a legal requirement.

Reply 11

john williams

i wouldnt base my decision on a few job losses years back, shows a lack of ambition if ur worried about losing ur job in a generally secure industry! I guess which ever you prefered when u went to the ac's, im still applying/interviewing and out the lot would chose deloitte if they offered me a place.

Reply 12

theis

rabbitus

Don't forget that you are hearing the KPMG hours from someone actually working there. The PwC hours and Deloitte hours are from the people in the interview who whilst not covering up the truth will be less likely to overstress the hours in comparison to someone currently in the middle of those kind of hours.

That post just sums up how crap financial services audit is really, I'm most of the way through my busy season and have worked a couple of weeks of 12 hour days. I've just finished on a client where we left at 5.00 on the dot everyday. And yet I'm picking up the same pay as some poor sod slogging it out in FS casting huge sets of numbers all night long in an effort to help value some dodgy investments the bank thought were safe.

On the topic of people they'll be fantastic where ever you go. There is no real reason why the people would be better at any one of the firms. The experiences you will hear will be completely based on department rather than firm, I'm at KPMG and can't speak highly enough of the people in my department, however someone from another department might not be enjoying it.

Finally surprises me that Deloitte told you the least hours would be required. Afaik they usually charge some of the highest fees, would be hard to see how they justified them on that basis.

Finally KPMG's pay review will come round shortly after you start. So whilst the figure in your offer (I assume 26k?) will be the one you start on that will rise to 26.5/27k within about a month of you starting.

Reply 13

Tednol

Another of these identical threads...

Basically all three firms are damn near identical. They'll pay largely the same, work you just as hard as each other, and the exam policies are equally tough. Hell, go with the one who's name you like the sound of as it's just as arbitrary as any other method of determining one from another. I work for D&T and whilst it's tough, it's a good laugh most of the time and on balance I am enjoying it. But there will be people working for PwC and KPMG who are enjoying their lot just as much.

Reply 14

blowfish

When it comes to audit, it's all the same really. Boring as (insert desired phrase here).
If you really want to do it then pick a name out of a hat or choose what office is best to get to...?

Reply 15

Beancounter

Honestly there's v little difference.The pay's the same, the hours are the same and the firms all attract the same kind of people. I'd go PwC on the basis of the client list if you want to do FS.

Reply 16

Beancounter

Honestly there's v little difference.The pay's the same, the hours are the same and the firms all attract the same kind of people. I'd go PwC on the basis of the client list if you want to do FS.

Reply 17

Raiden_2007

Deloitte's got morgan stanely, meryll lynch, RBS, abbey and so....it's up to you..
With regard to salary I've heard that PWC and Deloitte pays almost same..so start thinking about holidays..holidays may be necessary because if you fail any exam and if the firm let you resit that you will have to use your own holiday...

With regard to car scheme offered by some companies= seriously r u gonna drive car in london? better buy a rocket, travel to moon everyday..that'll save both time and money....

Reply 18

psyexe

It seems like PWC and KPMG are the ones that tend to produce the best people. I have been doing some research and I can say that majority of the CEOs and CFOs in major multinationals and smaller FS companies have some kind of background in these two.
The other one that I hear is that KPMG is considered as one of the nicer companies in BIG 4 and are known across the industry as the ' happy auditors' :smile:

Reply 19

Tednol

psyexe

The other one that I hear is that KPMG is considered as one of the nicer companies in BIG 4 and are known across the industry as the ' happy auditors' :smile:

That was probably a result of the soft exam policy they have had historically which is now a thing of the past.