When did Big Four experience stop being an automatic advantage?
For decades, having a Big Four firm on your CV has been one of the most recognised badges of credibility within accountancy. Deloitte. EY. KPMG. PwC.
Excellent training. Complex clients. Strong methodologies. High technical standards. International exposure. And four of the most recognised professional-services brands in the world. None of that has suddenly disappeared.
But as a recruiter working exclusively within accountancy practice, I’m seeing something increasingly often that I think deserves a proper discussion.
Big Four experience is no longer automatically considered an advantage by every accountancy practice employer.
In fact, I now have conversations with firms where I’m explicitly told that they would prefer candidates who have not come directly from a Big Four background. Five or ten years ago, I don't remember hearing that anything like as frequently.
So what has changed?
First, this is not an argument against the Big Four
I want to make this really clear. If your ambition is to build your career within the Big Four environment, I struggle to think of many better places to be. If you want to work with some of the UK's largest listed businesses, major international groups, financial institutions and incredibly complex organisations, the Big Four can provide exceptional experience. If your goal is ultimately to become a Director or Partner operating in that market, you are potentially exactly where you need to be.
The Big Four also remain dominant at the very top of the UK audit market.
Although non-Big Four firms increased their share of UK Public Interest Entity audits from approximately 22% in 2020 to around 40% in 2024, the largest and most valuable audits remain overwhelmingly concentrated within the Big Four.
ACCA's analysis of Financial Reporting Council data reported that the Big Four still accounted for approximately 98% of FTSE 350 audit fees and 91% of all PIE audit fees.
So this isn't an argument that Big Four experience isn't good experience. It clearly is.
The question I'm asking is whether it is always the most transferable experience.
What if the Big Four isn't your ultimate destination?
This is where I think people need to think much further ahead.
Perhaps your plan is:
I'll train with a Big Four firm, get fantastic experience, qualify, progress for a few years and then eventually move into a Top 20, Top 50 or strong regional independent practice.
Historically, there may have been an assumption that having Big Four on your CV would make that move relatively straightforward.
I'm no longer convinced that's always true. In fact, there is a potential paradox.
The longer you progress within the Big Four, the more valuable your experience can become within that particular market, while potentially becoming less directly transferable to certain parts of the wider practice market.
Why?
Because the jobs can be fundamentally different.
The issue isn't quality. It's relevance.
Imagine two ACA-qualified Audit Managers.
One works within the Big Four. They may have worked with some incredibly large listed or international organisations. They might have encountered highly complex accounting issues, sophisticated control environments, multiple international components and technical situations that an auditor in a smaller practice may never encounter.
That's fantastic experience.
Now consider another Audit Manager working within a Top 50 or strong regional independent. They may manage 30 or 40 different clients. They could be responsible for complete audits from planning through to completion. They may work directly with owners and Finance Directors. They might manage budgets, recoverability and scheduling. They could be involved in accounts, tax discussions, recruitment, staff development, pitching for new clients and broader commercial conversations.
Which one is the better accountant?
That's completely the wrong question.
The right question is:
Which person's experience is most relevant to the job we're recruiting for?
And that's where I think perceptions around Big Four experience have changed.
Depth versus breadth
For me, this is at the heart of the issue. Big Four experience can provide extraordinary depth. The wider practice market can sometimes require considerably more breadth.
Neither is inherently better. But they're different.
A regional Partner recruiting an Audit Manager to manage a substantial portfolio of owner managed businesses doesn't necessarily need somebody who has worked on the most complex audit.
They might need somebody who understands the entire client relationship. Someone comfortable sitting opposite an owner manager. Someone who can manage 30 deadlines rather than three.
Someone who understands fees and recoverability. Someone capable of managing the entire engagement. Someone who can spot opportunities to introduce tax, corporate finance or other advisory services. Someone who might eventually inherit part of the Partner's portfolio.
In that situation, five years working within another mid-tier or regional practice could potentially be more relevant than five years within the Big Four.
That's not anti-Big Four. It's simply matching experience to the job.
Even the nature of Big Four experience has changed
This is another important point. Big Four firms themselves have changed.
An interesting example comes from Armstrong Watson Audit Partner Michael Morris, who previously spent 13 years at Deloitte's predecessor firm.
Talking about his earlier career, Morris recalled having a portfolio of owner managed businesses. His observation about today's market was straightforward:
“The Big Four have now moved out of that space.”
That's significant. Someone who trained with a Big Four firm 20 or 30 years ago may have developed considerable exposure to privately owned and owner managed businesses.
Depending upon their office and department, somebody training there today may have a very different client base. So even the phrase “Big Four trained” doesn't necessarily describe the same experience it once did.
The rest of the market has changed too
This isn't simply a story about the Big Four becoming more focused on larger clients. The firms beneath them have grown and developed significantly.
According to FRC figures, non-Big Four firms' share of UK PIE audits increased from approximately 22% in 2020 to 40% in 2024.
The FRC's Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession 2025 also reported that overall UK fee income at the Big Four grew by 1.2% during 2024, compared with 9.8% across firms outside the Big Four.
Audit fee income increased by 9.9% among the Big Four and 15.4% among non-Big Four firms.
That doesn't mean the Big Four are about to lose their position at the top of the market. They're not.
But it does demonstrate how quickly the market underneath them is developing. Today's Top 20 and Top 50 accountancy practices can be substantial national and international businesses themselves.
Many have grown rapidly through investment, acquisition and organic expansion. The traditional gap between the Big Four and everybody else isn't necessarily what it once was.
And we're now seeing unusual changes in Big Four recruitment
This debate is happening against a very different employment market too.
Earlier in 2026, KPMG announced plans to cut almost 600 UK jobs, including approximately 440 assistant-manager positions within audit.
The Financial Times reported that unusually low staff attrition was one of the factors behind the audit business becoming overstaffed. That matters because audit had previously been relatively insulated from some of the larger professional-services redundancy programmes.
PwC has also subsequently offered targeted voluntary exits to some senior associates and managers within UK audit, with lower natural attrition again cited as part of the reason.
Yet demand to enter the Big Four remains huge.
PwC reportedly received around 60,000 applications for approximately 2,000 UK graduate roles for its 2026 intake, around 30 applicants for every position. That's an interesting contradiction.
Getting into the Big Four remains incredibly competitive.
But getting out into the particular part of the profession you want to join may not always be as straightforward as people assume.
International recruitment adds another dimension
This is something I encounter regularly as a recruiter. The Big Four and other very large firms have historically had the infrastructure and resources to sponsor significant numbers of internationally recruited accountants.
Changes to the UK's Skilled Worker system have subsequently made employer-sponsored recruitment more difficult and expensive.
The standard Skilled Worker salary threshold is now generally £41,700 or the relevant occupation's going rate, subject to various exceptions and transitional arrangements.
Workers who remain dependent upon Skilled Worker sponsorship generally also need a new Certificate of Sponsorship when changing employer. That naturally affects mobility.
Interestingly, when discussing KPMG's recent audit restructuring, the Financial Times reported that lower attrition had been particularly evident among overseas workers dependent upon sponsored visas.
Of course, once somebody has indefinite leave to remain, those particular sponsorship restrictions no longer apply. But there's another issue I see.
I speak with some exceptionally talented, highly qualified internationally trained accountants who now have the unrestricted right to work in the UK but whose entire UK experience has been within a highly specialised Big Four environment.
They can still discover that moving into the wider practice market isn't as straightforward as they expected. Again, that's not because they're poor accountants. Their experience simply doesn't always mirror what the hiring firm needs.
So should people leave the Big Four earlier?
I think we need to be careful here. There isn't a magic number. I wouldn't tell somebody: "Leave two years after qualifying."
Career decisions aren't that simple. Sector, office, clients, individual responsibilities and ambitions all matter. But I would encourage somebody who doesn't see their long-term career within the Big Four to think about the question much earlier.
Don't wait until you're a Senior Manager before asking what experience your eventual destination requires.
Ask yourself now:
What sort of clients do I ultimately want to work with?
Do I want to become a Partner?
What sort of Partner?
Do I want listed businesses or owner managed businesses?
Do I want technical specialism or broad commercial responsibility?
How many clients am I actually responsible for?
How much of an engagement do I personally own?
Am I developing client relationships?
Am I learning about fees, recoverability and portfolio management?
Am I developing business?
Am I becoming commercially responsible as well as technically excellent?
Because if the job you ultimately want requires those things, at some stage you need to acquire them.
Employers shouldn't make the opposite mistake either
There's another side to this argument. I don't believe “we don't want Big Four candidates” is necessarily a sensible blanket recruitment policy either. That's just replacing one assumption with another.
Not every Big Four accountant has the same experience. Office, sector, department, client portfolio and individual career choices make an enormous difference.
Some Big Four accountants have exceptionally broad experience. Some adapt incredibly quickly. Many have gone on to become extremely successful Partners and leaders within Top 20, Top 50 and regional firms.
So employers should assess the individual. The mistake isn't hiring someone from the Big Four. The mistake is assuming that the name of their employer tells you everything you need to know about their experience.
Prestige and transferability aren't the same thing
If there is one point I'd like people to take from this article, it's probably this:
Prestige and transferability aren't always the same thing.
You can have fantastic experience. You can be technically excellent. You can have one of the world's most recognised professional-services businesses on your CV.
And you can still not be the most appropriate candidate for a particular job.
Recruitment isn't about deciding which candidate has worked for the most prestigious employer. It's about understanding what somebody has actually done and whether that experience prepares them for what they need to do next.
So, when did Big Four experience stop being an automatic advantage?
Perhaps it never should have been one. What I think has changed is the willingness of employers to question it.
The Big Four still offer some of the best training, technical development and sophisticated professional experience available anywhere in accountancy.
But the wider accountancy-practice market has evolved. Challenger firms have grown. Regional firms have become more sophisticated. Client markets have become more clearly segmented. Career paths have diversified.
And employers are becoming increasingly interested in relevant experience rather than employer prestige alone.
Which brings me back to where I started.
If your ambition is a long-term Big Four career, Big Four experience is arguably the best experience you can have.
But if Big Four is somewhere you intend to train rather than somewhere you intend to stay, think further ahead.
Don't simply ask: “What's the best firm I can get on my CV?”
Ask:
“What experience do I need for the career I eventually want?”
Those two questions don't necessarily have the same answer. And increasingly, I'm seeing talented people discover that distinction later in their careers than they would have liked. I'd genuinely be interested in what other people within the profession are seeing.
If you're currently working within the Big Four, have you experienced resistance when exploring opportunities elsewhere in practice? And if you're a Partner, hiring manager or recruiter outside the Big Four, does Big Four experience still automatically strengthen an application?
Or are you increasingly interested in where somebody's experience came from after you've established what that experience actually is?
Patrick
The Accountancy Practice Recruiter
A note on this article
The observations and opinions in this article are my own, based on my experience recruiting within the UK accountancy practice market and the conversations I have with candidates, Partners and hiring teams.
I used ChatGPT to assist with researching publicly available data and sources, to challenge some of my assumptions and to help structure the article. The use of AI shouldn't be taken to mean that the conclusions above are established facts or universally held views. They aren't.
This is ultimately one recruiter's perspective on what I'm seeing in the market, supported where possible by published data. I've deliberately presented arguments on both sides, and I'd welcome different experiences and opinions.