Cost-cutting measures hit Big Four staff

Employees at Big Four firms on both sides of the Atlantic got some bad news last week. In the US, PwC cut 150 business support staff, the Wall Street Journal reported, following news that its annual report showed it trimmed 5,600 positions in FY 2025. In the UK, KPMG stopped giving junior auditors overtime pay during busy season, according to the Financial Times (FT).

Both PwC and KPMG, and the accounting field as a whole, have experienced slowing revenue growth. PwC’s revenue, for instance, was only up 2.9% in FY 2025, down from 3.7% in FY 2024, and 9.9% in 2023.

The decline follows a period of high post-pandemic demand for consulting, during which advisory services accounted for about half the Big Four’s revenue and many firms went on a hiring spree. The boom started to dwindle in 2023, when Deloitte, EY, and KPMG made staff cuts. PwC US followed suit, laying off around 1,800 people in October 2024 and 1,500 more in May 2025.

The 150 new layoffs represent 1.5% of PwC’s 10,000 business services employees in the US, and affect roles in areas like marketing, IT, communications, and HR. In 2022, PwC began a process of reorganizing and streamlining its business support functions, which is expected to continue for the next two years, the WSJ reported.

More job cuts will likely occur as a result of the reorg, Tim Grady, PwC’s US COO, told the Journal. Using the blandest euphemism for layoffs since “rightsizing,” he stated, “It’s very likely, and I would say expected, that there would be further resource actions in the future.”

AI, for once, won’t be to blame: The reorg will involve “a balance of tech and human,” Grady said, “but what it’s not is ‘Let’s just take a bunch of people out and see if we can backfill with AI. That’s not what this is.”

Busy season bonus nixed: Junior auditors at KPMG in the UK will no longer receive overtime pay if they work more than 50 hours during busy season. A KPMG source told the FT the policy is no longer as necessary, due to efforts to shift more auditing work away from busy season. Auditors now complete around 70% of work for large clients before busy season, instead of the 45% they finished two years ago, they said.

But junior auditors aren’t happy with the change. They were often able to make an extra £1,000 to £2,000 in overtime pay during busy season. New audit graduates at KPMG in London make around £32,500, or about $42,700 in US dollars. In contrast, last year UK KPMG partners had record-high compensation averaging £816,000, or $1,072,000 in US dollars, the FT reported.

The decision to cut busy season overtime could prove bad for retention, if what one auditor told the FT is true. “Everyone’s upset with it,” the source said. “A lot of the cohort don’t really see how anybody’s meant to be incentivized to stay long term, nor do we foresee where the future partners are going to come from.” (Maybe it’s worth sticking around for those sweet salaries?)