Economics consultancy

Bumped after two years lol

Any reason?

You won't need a PhD, though quite a few people get one. For the FSA, BoE and GES you don't need a masters as a recent graduate, as they'll sponsor one. Joining as an experience hire you would though. Economic consultancies usually require a masters, though some accept people straight after undergrad (CRA and LECG come to mind).


To be honest, I'm not too sure. Starting salaries tend to be around the £30k mark and would usually rise a bit quicker than in the public sector, though I'm not sure on typical progression.


FSA is more than that. Starting salary is around £31k + £2.5k starting bonus. After time depends on promotion and thus ability. Say you make manager or technical specialist after 10 years you'd probably expect to be on somewhere around £60-110k plus bonus (bonuses between 0% and 35% of your salary, with the average around 15%). If you don't make manager you'd probably be on around £45-60k plus bonus. Without promotion it'd be hard to get above £60k. After 20 or 30 years it's plausible to be at any level, though as an economist the highest you can become is head of the Economics department.

Bank of England would likely be similar. However the Civil Service employ far more economists than both put together, and would be a little lower - starting around £25k, hitting £40-60 if you get promoted (usually ~4 or 5 years). After that you'd be into managerial positions.


They aren't. There are probably far more people employed as public sector economists than economic consultants. The pay isn't bad at all, though it isn't banking pay. Also, public sector economics experience is a great thing to have for going into consultancy. Most economic consultants work on competition cases, plus some random bits of public and private sector work. This means havign experience of the other side is really useful. Though this works both ways - a lot of our economists have worked as economic consultants before. There's definitely a lot of overlap.

Best thing is to apply too all of them - consultancies and public sector - at the start of your final year and see if you get any places you like. If so, do that and either get them to sponsor a masters or take some time out later to do it. If not, and you can afford a masters, do one and apply again. Or if you really want to, do a PhD, though it's perfectly possible to do a PhD after working as an economist, or vice versa. There's a lot of overlap here too.

Great, thanks a lot. I had a feeling there was hardly any money involved. I'm surprised you can earn £110K after only 10 years in the public sector.

Would your advice change if you heard that the course I am taking is Government and Economics at LSE? As it is not straight Economics I am slightly worried it wouldn't look great for being an Economist. I can try and top it up with an Msc Economics (too early to sayy for sure now) with possible a postgrad diploma in Economics first if I have to.