Is banking or consulting harder to get into?

Generally, which is harder to get into?

What kind of consulting? I'm assuming you are referring to financial consulting? Getting a graduate job in investment banking is far more difficult due mainly to its pay. There are few positions and thousands of applicants. One of the worst jobs in the UK in my opinion.

Generally, which is harder to get into?

I think consulting at MBB is probably harder then IB. The interviews are notorious, you really have to be prepped and knowledgable. Plus they just dont have the same number of vanancies.

That said Ive met more people get into Big-4 consulting then IB, so I broadly suspect that is less competitive.

The reality is they are all competitive because the compensation and prestige of the job is excellent.

My dream would be strategy consulting at MBB but i've heard so much about how hard it is to get into especially if you're not coming from oxbridge, and that I might as well go for banking since the competition is the same but higher pay and more vacancies, then switch to consulting later in career

Im not sire switching from IB to MBB is that easy to do. (and breaking into an IB job and sticking out to a level that would even appear on the radar of MBB is also not easy).

I think if you miss on MBB the route into it would be to go Big4/tier-2 and try and make a name for yourself.

Probably the thing to do is apply for all of them as lets face it, they are all super competitive. But you need to tailor & prep your applications for each one.