Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 5, 2026

 

EY vs KPMG consulting comes down to one structural difference: EY runs a separate strategy brand in EY-Parthenon that generated $6.2 billion in FY25, while KPMG folds all of its consulting work into a single Advisory practice weighted toward risk, regulation, and deal advisory. This article compares the two firms on revenue, pay by level, prestige, interview format, and the work you will actually be staffed on, so you can pick the right one instead of guessing.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

EY is the stronger pick if you want strategy work and higher senior-level pay, while KPMG is the stronger pick if you want regulated industries, financial services, or deal advisory.

 

• EY Consulting brought in $16.4 billion in FY25, and EY-Parthenon added another $6.2 billion on top

 

• KPMG Advisory is roughly $16 billion and is the firm's largest service line, but it has no standalone strategy brand

 

• EY pays about 4% more than KPMG at Consultant level and about 14% more at Senior Manager

 

• Vault ranked EY-Parthenon the 5th most prestigious firm in North America and places KPMG last among the Big Four

 

• EY Consulting cases are interviewer-guided, while KPMG cases are candidate-led and often paired with a written exercise

 

• The practice you join matters more than the logo: EY undergraduate total pay ranged from $90,000 to $130,000 depending on the group

 

What Is the Main Difference Between EY and KPMG Consulting?

 

EY is larger and more strategy-focused: it generated $53.2 billion in FY25 across 406,209 people, with a dedicated strategy brand in EY-Parthenon. KPMG generated $39.8 billion across 276,030 people, and its consulting work sits inside a single Advisory practice built around risk, regulation, technology, and deal advisory.

 

That one difference drives almost everything else you care about. It shapes the pay bands, the interview format, the clients you serve, and the doors your resume opens three years later.

 

Factor	EY	KPMG
FY25 global revenue	$53.2 billion	$39.8 billion
Consulting revenue	$16.4 billion, plus $6.2 billion at EY-Parthenon	Roughly $16 billion in Advisory
Global headcount	406,209	276,030
Strategy brand	EY-Parthenon, a named practice with its own hiring track	None, strategy sits inside Advisory
Core strengths	Transaction strategy, private equity diligence, technology transformation	Risk and regulatory, financial services, deal advisory, government
Case interview style	Interviewer-guided in Consulting, candidate-led at EY-Parthenon	Candidate-led, often with a written case
Vault 2026 prestige	EY-Parthenon ranked 5th in North America	Last of the Big Four

 

Notice the second row. On raw consulting revenue the two firms are nearly identical, which is why so many candidates treat them as interchangeable. The $6.2 billion strategy arm sitting on top of EY's number is the real story.

 

How Do EY and KPMG Compare on Size and Growth?

 

EY is about a third larger than KPMG overall, and its consulting business is growing faster. According to EY's FY25 results, Consulting revenue rose 5.2% in local currency to $16.4 billion for the year ending June 2025.

 

Headcount tells the same story. EY's Consulting service line employed 124,238 people at the end of FY25, up 5.4% year over year, with another 25,036 in Strategy and Transactions.

 

KPMG's picture is different. KPMG's FY25 results for the year ending September 2025 show total revenue of $39.8 billion, up 5.1% in local currency, with Advisory growing just 2.9% while Tax and Legal grew 7.5% and Audit grew 6.0%.

 

Read that again, because it is the most useful number in this comparison. KPMG grew faster than EY overall, but its consulting arm was the slowest-growing part of the firm while EY's was one of the fastest.

 

Growth rates matter to you directly. Faster-growing practices hire more aggressively, promote sooner, and staff juniors on new work rather than renewals of the same engagement.

 

KPMG's global headcount grew 1.8% to 276,030 in FY25, with the firm noting that specialist hiring focused on AI and Tax and Legal services. EY added 13,184 people across the organization in the same period, and more than 15,000 EY professionals worked on AI-led client projects inside Consulting and EY-Parthenon.

 

What Kind of Consulting Work Will You Actually Do?

 

This is the question candidates skip and later regret. Both firms are Big Four consulting firms, but the day-to-day work inside them is not the same.

 

What does EY Consulting do?

 

EY Consulting is the technology and transformation engine of the firm. Its work spans cybersecurity, supply chain and operations, data and analytics, customer experience, and large enterprise technology programs.

 

Expect long implementation engagements rather than six-week strategy sprints. EY invests more than $1 billion a year in AI platforms and products, and a large share of Consulting work now sits downstream of that investment.

 

What does EY-Parthenon do?

 

EY-Parthenon is the strategy and transactions brand, and it is the closest thing at either firm to MBB work. Projects cluster around corporate strategy, commercial due diligence, M&A, valuation, restructuring, and portfolio decisions for private equity clients.

 

The practice generated $6.2 billion in FY25, though revenue was flat and headcount fell 1.8% to 25,036. Flat is not a red flag on its own, since deal-driven practices track the M&A cycle, but it does mean the hiring bar stays high.

 

What does KPMG Advisory do?

 

KPMG Advisory is built around risk, regulation, and transactions. Its strongest franchises are financial services, deal advisory, government and public sector, healthcare, and technology in regulated industries.

 

KPMG is honest about this positioning, and that is a point in its favor. If you want to spend your career on bank regulatory work, insurance transformation, or private equity diligence in financial services, KPMG is a genuinely strong place to do it.

 

The tradeoff is scope. Strategy projects exist at KPMG, but you are not hired into a dedicated strategy track, so you have less control over whether you get staffed on them.

 

Does EY or KPMG Pay More in Consulting?

 

EY pays more at every level, and the gap widens as you climb. The table below uses United States total compensation data from Levels.fyi as of August 2026.

 

Level	EY	KPMG	EY premium
Consultant	$103,000	$99,000	4%
Senior Consultant	$158,000	$141,000	12%
Manager	$213,000	$186,000	15%
Senior Manager	$261,000	$229,000	14%

 

Source: Levels.fyi EY management consultant data and Levels.fyi KPMG management consultant data, United States, August 2026. Figures are rounded.

 

A $4,000 gap at entry becomes a $32,000 gap by Senior Manager. Over an eight-year run to that level, choosing EY over KPMG is worth roughly six figures in cumulative pay, assuming similar promotion speed.

 

Practice choice moves the number far more than firm choice. Based on 2025 undergraduate consulting pay data from Poets and Quants, EY Strategy and Operations hires started at $130,000 in total compensation while core EY Consulting hires started at $90,000, and KPMG Strategy hires landed at $110,000.

 

Sit with that for a second. The spread inside EY was $40,000, which is ten times the entry-level gap between the two firms.

 

EY-Parthenon offers add a wrinkle worth knowing about. Poets and Quants reported that EY-Parthenon undergraduate hires start at $100,000 base with performance bonuses reaching $27,000, plus a $50,000 retention bonus paid after the third year, which is a direct answer to the two-and-out habit of Big Four juniors. I break the full ladder down in my guide to EY-Parthenon salary.

 

Firm-wide averages are close to useless here, and I want to show you why. Glassdoor's 2026 estimates put the average EY Consultant at $127,266 and the average KPMG Consultant at $127,186, a difference of $80 a year, because both averages blend dozens of practices and seniority levels into one meaningless number. The level-by-level view in my KPMG consulting salary breakdown is far more useful when you have an offer in hand.

 

Which Firm Is More Prestigious, EY or KPMG?

 

EY wins on prestige, but only through EY-Parthenon. In Vault's 2026 North America rankings, EY-Parthenon placed fifth for prestige behind McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte, while Vault ranks KPMG last among the Big Four.

 

Those rankings come from a fall 2025 survey of more than 10,000 verified consulting professionals, who rate firms other than their own. Vault weights prestige at 30% of its overall score, with culture and satisfaction at 15% each.

 

Be careful about how you use this. Core EY Consulting is not EY-Parthenon, and an offer from EY's technology practice does not carry EY-Parthenon's fifth-place brand into your next job search.

 

Prestige also narrows sharply once you specialize. Among the most prestigious consulting firms, brand rank predicts private equity and corporate strategy outcomes well, but it predicts very little for bank regulatory or government work where KPMG competes on equal footing.

 

Having coached hundreds of candidates through Big Four offers, I have watched far more people regret a practice choice than a firm choice. The KPMG financial services consultant who loves her clients is happier than the EY technology consultant who wanted strategy and got an ERP rollout.

 

How Do the EY and KPMG Interview Processes Compare?

 

Both firms run two to three rounds over roughly four weeks, pair a case with a behavioral interview in most rounds, and screen heavily with online assessments before a human reads your resume. The differences are in the case format and the final stage.

 

Stage	EY	KPMG
Screening	Resume screen plus a strengths-based online assessment	Resume screen plus cognitive and job simulation assessments
Video round	Recorded video interview for most campus roles	Recorded video interview, standard across programs
Case format	Interviewer-guided in Consulting, candidate-led at EY-Parthenon	Candidate-led across advisory roles
Written case	Common at EY-Parthenon, rare in core Consulting	Common, often a timed data packet exercise
Final stage	Partner round, sometimes run as a Super Day	Assessment day with a group exercise in many markets

 

What does the EY interview process look like?

 

EY leads with a strengths-based online assessment that reads your working style before any live round. Campus candidates then record a video interview, and the analytical round is set by the sub-service line you applied to.

 

The case style is the thing to prepare for. An EY case interview in core Consulting runs 30 to 45 minutes and is interviewer-guided, meaning your interviewer steers you question by question rather than handing you an open problem.

 

EY-Parthenon flips that. The EY-Parthenon case interview is candidate-led, leans on private equity diligence math, and frequently includes a written case with a data packet you have to triage under time pressure.

 

Every EY loop includes a motivation question, and a recycled answer to Why EY is one of the fastest ways to lose an otherwise strong candidacy. Name the practice, name the work, and name what you want to build.

 

What does the KPMG interview process look like?

 

KPMG screens harder and earlier. Its aptitude assessments combine numerical, verbal, and situational judgment testing with an immersive job simulation, and each stage must be passed before you advance.

 

The live rounds are two to three interviews over about four weeks, usually one case and one behavioral per round. Cases are candidate-led, so you set the structure, request the data, run the math, and drive to a recommendation without being walked through it.

 

Early-career hiring in several markets ends at Launch Pad, a half-day assessment event built around a group exercise, an analysis task, and a one-to-one interview with a senior member of the firm. Decisions typically follow within two working days.

 

The group exercise is where I see the most candidates stumble, because it rewards behavior that solo case prep never trains. Answering Why KPMG with a generic Big Four answer is the other common failure, so anchor on a specific practice such as deal advisory or financial services risk.

 

If you want to learn case interviews quickly, my case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days.

 

Which Firm Is Easier to Get Into?

 

Core EY Consulting is the easiest of the three doors, KPMG Advisory sits close behind, and EY-Parthenon is meaningfully harder than either. Headcount direction explains why better than any published acceptance rate.

 

EY Consulting grew from 117,900 people to 124,238 in FY25, adding more than 6,000 heads in a single year. A practice hiring at that pace has open seats in most offices and most service areas.

 

EY-Parthenon moved the opposite way, shrinking 1.8% to 25,036 people while revenue stayed flat at $6.2 billion. Small cohorts and a shrinking base mean fewer seats and a higher bar, which is the practical reality behind the EY-Parthenon acceptance rate.

 

KPMG grew headcount just 1.8% overall in FY25, and its specialist hiring skewed toward AI and Tax and Legal rather than Advisory. Slower growth in the practice you want is a signal, not a footnote.

 

There is a practical strategy in these numbers. Apply to core EY Consulting and KPMG Advisory as your volume plays, apply to EY-Parthenon as your reach, and give the EY-Parthenon prep two extra weeks because the case format is harder.

 

What Are Exit Opportunities Like at EY vs KPMG?

 

Your exits are set by the projects on your resume, not the firm on your business card. That is true of consulting exit opportunities generally, and it is especially true across the Big Four, where two people at the same firm can end up in completely different markets.

 

EY-Parthenon produces the strongest buy-side outcomes of any practice at either firm. Commercial due diligence for private equity clients is the single most transferable Big Four experience for corporate development, private equity, and growth equity roles.

 

Core EY Consulting exits look different. Technology transformation and cybersecurity work leads naturally into internal strategy, program management, and technology leadership roles at large corporates.

 

KPMG's best exits run through financial services and deal advisory. Bank regulatory, risk, and valuation experience opens doors at banks, insurers, asset managers, and regulators, and those employers value the specific credential rather than a generic consulting brand.

 

One more pattern from coaching hundreds of people through this decision: candidates chasing a private equity exit should optimize hard for EY-Parthenon, while candidates targeting a specific regulated industry should optimize for the KPMG practice that serves it.

 

Should You Choose EY or KPMG Consulting?

 

Pick based on the work you want in year three, not the logo you want on LinkedIn today. Here is how the choice breaks down.

 

• Best for strategy and private equity exits: EY-Parthenon, which sits fifth on Vault's 2026 North America prestige ranking

 

• Best for financial services and regulatory work: KPMG Advisory, where the firm has built real, defensible depth

 

• Best for technology transformation: EY Consulting, backed by more than $1 billion a year in AI platform investment

 

• Best for pay at senior levels: EY, which runs 14% ahead of KPMG at Senior Manager

 

• Best for government and public sector work: KPMG, which staffs that work at scale

 

• Best if you have offers from both: whichever firm gave you the better practice, since practice beats brand at this tier

 

There is one case where the answer is simple. If you have an EY-Parthenon offer and a core KPMG Advisory offer, take EY-Parthenon, because the pay, the case exposure, and the exit options are all better.

 

Everything else is a genuine tradeoff. A KPMG deal advisory offer beats an EY technology transformation offer for a candidate who wants finance, and the reverse is true for a candidate who wants to build products.

 

Choosing between EY vs KPMG consulting gets much easier once you stop comparing firm brands and start comparing the two specific teams making you an offer. Ask each recruiter which practice you would join, what the last three projects that team staffed looked like, and how many people were promoted out of your level last cycle, then decide from there.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is EY or KPMG better for consulting?

 

EY is better if you want strategy work, a recognizable strategy brand on your resume, and higher pay at senior levels. KPMG is better if you want regulated industries, financial services, deal advisory, or government work. Neither firm wins across the board, so pick based on the practice you would join rather than the logo.

 

Does EY or KPMG pay more for consultants?

 

EY pays more at every level according to Levels.fyi US data as of August 2026, and the gap grows with seniority. Median total compensation is about $103,000 at EY versus $99,000 at KPMG for a Consultant, and about $261,000 versus $229,000 for a Senior Manager. Practice matters more than firm, since EY-Parthenon pays well above core EY Consulting.

 

Is it harder to get into EY or KPMG?

 

EY-Parthenon is the hardest entry point at either firm because it hires a small strategy cohort and runs candidate-led cases with a written component. Core EY Consulting and KPMG Advisory hire at much larger scale and have similar bars. The hardest part at both firms is the online assessment stage, which screens out a large share of applicants before a human reads your resume.

 

Does KPMG have a strategy consulting practice like EY-Parthenon?

 

KPMG does not have a standalone strategy brand equivalent to EY-Parthenon. Strategy work at KPMG sits inside the broader Advisory practice alongside risk, technology, and deal advisory. This means strategy projects exist, but you are not hired into a dedicated strategy career track the way you are at EY-Parthenon.

 

Which is more prestigious, EY or KPMG?

 

EY carries more consulting prestige, largely because of EY-Parthenon. Vault ranked EY-Parthenon the fifth most prestigious consulting firm in North America in 2026, behind only McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte. Vault ranks KPMG last among the Big Four on prestige, though the gap narrows for financial services and deal advisory roles.

 

Can you move from KPMG Advisory to EY-Parthenon?

 

Yes, and experienced hire moves between Big Four consulting practices are common. The move is easiest if you have deal advisory or commercial due diligence experience, since that maps directly to EY-Parthenon work. You will still run a full candidate-led case process, including a written case, so treat it as a real interview loop rather than a lateral transfer.

 

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