MBB Consulting in Europe?

Experience depends on the office, the industry sector, and the firm.

In smaller offices (e.g., Portugal, Poland, ...) you are more likely to work across industry sectors when you start out as there is no critical mass in any one industry sector. Once you start specializing in an industry sector (e.g., automotive, retail banking, ...) you are likely to travel, as there is simply not a sufficient client base locally.

In larger offices (e.g., UK, Germany), you start specializing in an industry sector earlier, and you are much more likely to be staffed locally.

In general, local language skills are a huge plus in consulting. In your early years, you will mostly work with middle managers as clients. Everyone speaks SOME English, but not everyone is comfortable. For example, try to run a client workshop with 15 Spanish sales managers (or make that Italian sales managers, or German sales managers) and you are the only person that doesn't speak the local language, and everyone has to speak English just for you. I can guarantee the meeting will switch to the local language in the first 15 minutes. Also, consulting is about gaining client trust and building relationships to clients. That is much more difficult if you can't speak to people in their local language, as you will not pick up on subtle cues that the client gives.

As you advance, it becomes less of an issue. Top managers are generally very comfortable speaking English, plus once you have been in the consulting industry for long enough that you actually have something interesting to say, people will listen no matter the language.

The fluidity across offices depends on the way P&Ls are managed. BCG puts a strong emphasis on country P&Ls, so the local office manager has a strong preference for "his" consultants to be staffed locally. McK is much more fluid.

In the end, much comes down to personal preference. If you want an international staffing, you can typically get it. Might be a bit more difficult because you have to convince people that you can be effective without the local language skills, but not impossible.

However, I would say that 90% of London MBB consultants spend most of their time in London because that's what they want to do, and they see it as a privilege being able to work in consulting without having to travel a lot.

And on the competitiveness: Yes London office is competitive. On the other hand, MBB London also competes against lots of other highly paid attractive jobs in London (banking, ...). As a consequence, I would say the quality of consultants in London is in fact a bit lower than in other countries, where MBB is the only option.