Canada’s top consultancy firms are freezing starting salaries, some for a third year in a row, as artificial intelligence continues to reshape how firms hire and deploy junior talent.
Job offers sent by firms including EY Canada and Deloitte for 2026 show that the starting base salaries for new graduates remain unchanged from the previous year, according to data from Management Consulted, which helps students prepare for consulting job interviews.
For young Canadians already navigating a difficult job market, the rise of AI adds another obstacle, experts say. As the technology takes on more work traditionally handled by junior consultants, firms can hire fewer people, delay hiring and keep salaries flat, all while competition for entry-level roles intensifies. The result is a freezing effect on early-career earning potential, raising questions about the financial trajectory of new graduates entering the field.
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“It’s more competitive than it’s ever been,” said Namaan Mian, chief operating officer of Management Consulted. Firms are aggressively adopting AI internally and seeing “productivity and efficiency gains from this new technology,” he said. “When you increase productivity per employee, you need less employees.”
With firms able to “attract all the talent they need and the quality of talent that they need at the same price,” Mr. Mian added, “why would they raise salaries?”
These entry-level positions are often stepping stones for finance and corporate leaders, and without them, candidates can miss out on valuable training.
Management Consulted’s data show that first-year base salaries for new graduate hires in Canada were unchanged at $100,000 at McKinsey and Bain & Co. since 2023. Boston Consulting Group was the outlier, raising them slightly to $100,000 in 2025 from $90,000 in 2024. McKinsey and BCG declined The Globe’s request for comment, and Bain did not respond by deadline.
At the Big Four accounting firms – Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC – where starting packages are typically lower, pay has been stagnant since 2023 at all but KPMG, which has held it steady since 2024, according to Management Consulted. All four have starting offers that hover between $68,000 and $72,000. EY declined The Globe’s request for comment, while Deloitte and KPMG did not respond by deadline.
Anuja Kale-Agarwal, a PwC spokesperson, said by e-mail that PwC Canada’s starting consulting salaries typically range from $75,000 to $85,000 depending on “candidate experience, skills, and location,” but didn’t specify what year that range was for.
While Management Consulted found that PwC’s starting salary has been $72,000 since 2023, PwC Canada said its base salaries have increased since that year, “and the range has also been adjusted to ensure we continue to remain market competitive.”
Management Consulted collects consulting salary data from its clients who share their written offers, and directly from firms.
While AI is reshaping firms’ staffing needs, it’s not the only reason for salary stagnation, Mr. Mian said. Firms are also correcting from the surge in hiring during the post-COVID boom. “It all comes down to consulting firms are not growing at the same pace they were,” Mr. Mian said. “We are back to a normal growth trajectory.”
At the same time, demand has shifted toward “mid-level or specialist talent,” Mr. Mian said, particularly people with experience in analytics, automation, or AI deployment – areas growing faster than entry-level generalist roles.
Brendon Bernard, senior economist at job-search site Indeed Canada, evaluated Canadian consulting job postings and found that non-senior consultant job postings on Indeed were down 18 per cent from February, 2020, to February, 2025. During the same period, senior and management roles rose by 5 per cent, though they’ve been down since 2022.
“A lot of hiring happened during the boom, and now that, that hiring appetite has really shrunk back,” Mr. Bernard said.
Lower attrition is adding to the bottleneck. With a murky economic outlook, fewer people are leaving their jobs, limiting openings for new graduates. On average, only 0.4 per cent of Canadian workers changed employers per month in the third quarter of 2025, down from 0.7 per cent in 2019, according to Statistics Canada.
Given the tougher landscape, Mr. Mian recommends students start networking as early as possible and familiarize themselves with the recruiting cycle. “It’s harder than ever to get an interview without having networked and making yourself known prior to applying,” he said. “The more you can do on the front end to de-risk your candidacy, the better.”
He also suggests broadening the search across practices and locations. Some consulting practices are growing faster than others, he said, and candidates may improve their chances by applying to those areas. And because some firms pay the same salary in Toronto as they do in Calgary, students may find their money goes further in lower-cost cities.