The traditional dream of climbing the ladder to partnership at professional services firms looks starkly different today compared to just five years ago. The Big Four – KPMG, EY, PwC and Deloitte – are grappling with profitability challenges, prompting significant changes to their partnership model to prevent the profit pool from being diluted.
From Boom to Bust
During the pandemic, the sector boomed as clients sought advice, leading the Big Four to embark on a massive hiring spree in 2021 and 2022. However, over the last two years, that spark has fizzled out. All four firms have struggled with stagnant profits and ballooning headcount. A steady stream of layoffs has occurred as the economic landscape rendered their traditional attrition model ineffective – they can no longer rely on people leaving to trim headcount.
But cutting at the equity level has been tougher. Equity partners own a part of the business, and removing them is expensive. Yet even these prestigious positions are not safe from cuts. James Ransome, partner at advisory firm Patrick Morgan, told City AM he is “seeing a clear shift away from the traditional ‘job-for-life’ equity partnership model.”
Demotions and Dilution
News broke on Friday that KPMG has begun demoting UK senior equity partners, offering them lower-status salaried partner roles instead. “Firms are becoming more performance-driven and, in many cases, more corporate in how they manage senior talent,” Ransome explained.
The firms do not disclose how many equity partners they have. City AM analysed recent Companies House data for each Big Four firm, taking the total profit share and dividing it by the average distribution to estimate equity partner numbers. According to this analysis, KPMG had 346 equity partners out of 833 total partners, while Deloitte had 606 out of 1,356. EY and PwC headcount figures were unclear in public reports.
The more people added to the equity partnership, the more the profit pool gets diluted. Craig McKellar, recruitment specialist from McKellar Consulting, noted, “KPMG recently reported they outperformed EY and PwC on profit per partner for the first time in a long time, and that is because they decided to stop promoting as many people into equity partnership.” Firms have been making slow moves over the past few years to stall who gets invited to the top floor.
Declining Promotions
Promotion numbers have been slowly dropping since their peak in 2021. EY has seen the sharpest decline, with only 34 promotions in 2025 – a drop of nearly 70% since 2022. This is partly driven by cost-cutting after the failure to split the global company into two entities in 2023, a deal known as Project Everest that cost hundreds of millions.
Deloitte followed closely with 60 promotions last year, down from 124 at its peak three years earlier, despite stating in June 2025 that it “continues to promote high performers to its most senior rank.” In 2025, PwC introduced a new managing director career route, which “diversified” its structure, creating a senior pathway without the promise of equity.
Firms have created more managing director and salaried partner roles to maintain talent with career progression without reducing equity partner seats. Besides protecting profits, another reason for getting tough at the top is that some partners are not the rainmakers the firm expects. McKellar said many Big Four giants have been “losing young high performers” who are fed up with their contributions not being rewarded fairly, “at the expense of more experienced partners who aren’t bringing in fees.”
“These leaders and performers who leave the Big Four to a LLP or a PE-backed firm, for example, are not chasing money,” McKellar added. “They are moving to an environment where they are valued more and where they can be motivated and thrive.”
