Hello Everyone! Apparently I have been registered on this site for 2+ years but never used it. I understand that its primarily for Investment Banking and similar questions but a lot of my queries on google led me here so I thought that i might as well ask my doubts in detail here. To give you a brief background, I work in a back office role in India for one of the largest British retail banks. Specifically in credit risk model development. So we develop statistical and machine learning models for capital, impairment, scorecards etc. for retail banking products. I have 3 years of experience in the same.
Over the past couple of weeks, I was contacted by recruiters from KPMG and EY for their London office. The role is pretty much the same as what I do. Its a senior consultant position in the Financial Services team as part of advisory vertical (I think one of them has a credit risk/market risk separation as well, forgot which one). Long story short, I have cleared interviews with both and am waiting for their offer. So in the meantime I had some queries that maybe someone could help with
Is there any difference between EY and KPMG in terms of reputation or quality of work or anything? Reading up online, most people seem to suggest choosing based on work culture and your fit but not having interviewed in person and not even been in their offices, that is very hard for me to judge. Any opinions on the same? I was told by someone that KPMG has a stronger reputation for quant risk work.
whats the work load in advisory like? I know in audit, it tends to be very heavy for the latter half of the year (12+ hours are common), is it the same in advisory or are hours better
Is 55000 GBP a decent salary for someone with 3 years of experience at such a firm. This is the salary I have quoted. Most salary searches gave me a figure of around 50k so I quoted 55k. I know its low compared to what IB guys get but I dont think big4 cos would pay more than this. Also is it sufficient for a single guy to live comfortably in London? The taxes and rents in London seem to be absurdly high.
Is big4 experience looked at favorably in terms of exit opportunities? I would ideally like to move to a bank after some time. I don't think big4 companies are very good in terms of career growth perspective.
What kind of bonuses do people in these companies get if any? I am sure it must be quite low. I also read about something called profit sharing, what exactly is it? And you get any salary increment year on year or does that happen only when you get promoted ?
Thanks for reading. Sorry for the extremely long post. Have a good day.
