Big 4 Audit - what is it like nowadays?

I did an internship at a regional, so take this with a grain of salt as I was only there for a short time

Travel depends on your client, but overall its fair to say it's decreased due to zoom/calls being cheaper and easier

Busy period is generally a 9 til late, 8-10pm not unreasonable. Not literally 16 hour but at the same time remember what salary you're getting paid so working that long is still ****. It's frowned on to book time off during these months, most book it off during the quiet summer months. Really though it just depends on what clients you're on and the senior management you have in your office, difficult to give precise hour numbers. I heard that london offices work significantly longer hours with a generally worse culture

The more senior you get the more ****ed you get it seemed, consistent trend of people seeming more stressed the more senior they were

Thank you so much for your answer, it's really helpful! And do you know by any chance if auditors usually work alone or as part of a team? Does each person get assigned a project and then does the bulk of the work for it, or is it always a team effort?

No problem. Auditors pretty much always work in teams, will vary depending on client size and difficulty of the audit. Especially when you first start you just do small easy parts of the audit then as you get more senior do more of it. As a first year, if your seniors are good they will clearly and simply explain what you have to do and how to do it. There's a lot of manual simple tasks that just have to be done, stuff that seems like it will be automated by AI in 10 years, like reading through invoices and inputting the data. I think when you hit manager/senior manager you may then start to lead engagements but at no point in your grad scheme will you ever be doing the bulk of a singular audit I don't think, unless it was a very small one

I have received an offer some time ago and was wondering if anyone working in Big 4 Audit could answer a couple of questions? It would really help me to decide whether the role and the lifestyle that comes with it are right for me!

First of all, I've heard from a couple of people that there is much less travelling these days and hardly any overnight stays – is this right from your experience? Depends, regional has a lot of local travel and London office work tends to be in London, however, there is potential for overnight stays. When I was there (2016-19) the firm I was at had a policy that you could only expense accomodation if client site was more than 1.5hrs from your home office - otherwise it was daily commuting to and from site.

How busy is your 'busy season'? Do you really have to work 16h a day while also not being allowed to book any time off during those months? Again depends on team and office - banking audit in London is probably the worst and 16hr days are pretty common there, charities audit and private markets had much more normal hours - maybe 9-6 and a bit longer coming up towards signing. Again where I was leave was limited to 5 days across November (peak planning time) and Jan-Mar

And finally, how does all of the above change as you become more senior? Travel - no change until manager/senior manager, hours - progressively worse but less grunt work

I am especially curious to hear from people who work in regional offices, as it might be different from London.

Choosing a career is never an easy decision, so I would really appreciate any help or advice I could get. Thank you

No problem. Auditors pretty much always work in teams, will vary depending on client size and difficulty of the audit. Especially when you first start you just do small easy parts of the audit then as you get more senior do more of it. As a first year, if your seniors are good they will clearly and simply explain what you have to do and how to do it. There's a lot of manual simple tasks that just have to be done, stuff that seems like it will be automated by AI in 10 years, like reading through invoices and inputting the data. I think when you hit manager/senior manager you may then start to lead engagements but at no point in your grad scheme will you ever be doing the bulk of a singular audit I don't think, unless it was a very small one