{"id":327460,"date":"2025-12-05T17:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327460\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T17:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:32:11","slug":"as-ai-reshapes-hiring-starting-pay-stagnates-at-canadas-consulting-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327460\/","title":{"rendered":"As AI reshapes hiring, starting pay stagnates at Canada\u2019s consulting firms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For young Canadians already navigating a difficult job market<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Canadian wealth management firms lag global peers on AI adoption, study shows<\/a><\/p>\n

What you need to know about the AI bubble \u2013 and how it will pop<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more competitive than it\u2019s ever been,\u201d said Namaan Mian, chief operating officer of Management Consulted. Firms are aggressively adopting AI internally and seeing \u201cproductivity and efficiency gains from this new technology,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you increase productivity per employee, you need less employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

With firms able to \u201cattract all the talent they need and the quality of talent that they need at the same price,\u201d Mr. Mian added, \u201cwhy would they raise salaries?\u201d<\/p>\n

These entry-level positions are often stepping stones for finance and corporate leaders, and without them, candidates can miss out on valuable training.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Management Consulted\u2019s 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\u2019s request for comment, and Bain did not respond by deadline. <\/p>\n

At the Big Four accounting firms \u2013 Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC \u2013 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\u2019s request for comment, while Deloitte and KPMG did not respond by deadline.<\/p>\n

Anuja Kale-Agarwal, a PwC spokesperson, said by e-mail that PwC Canada\u2019s starting consulting salaries typically range from $75,000 to $85,000 depending on \u201ccandidate experience, skills, and location,\u201d but didn\u2019t specify what year that range was for.<\/p>\n

While Management Consulted found that PwC\u2019s starting salary has been $72,000 since 2023, PwC Canada said its base salaries have increased since that year, \u201cand the range has also been adjusted to ensure we continue to remain market competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Management Consulted collects consulting salary data from its clients who share their written offers, and directly from firms.<\/p>\n

While AI is reshaping firms\u2019 staffing needs, it\u2019s not the only reason for salary stagnation, Mr. Mian said. Firms are also correcting from the surge in hiring during the post-COVID boom. \u201cIt all comes down to consulting firms are not growing at the same pace they were,\u201d Mr. Mian said. \u201cWe are back to a normal growth trajectory.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the same time, demand has shifted toward \u201cmid-level or specialist talent,\u201d Mr. Mian said, particularly people with experience in analytics, automation, or AI deployment \u2013 areas growing faster than entry-level generalist roles. <\/p>\n

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\u2019ve been down since 2022.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of hiring happened during the boom, and now that, that hiring appetite has really shrunk back,\u201d Mr. Bernard said. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Given the tougher landscape, Mr. Mian recommends students start networking as early as possible and familiarize themselves with the recruiting cycle. \u201cIt\u2019s harder than ever to get an interview without having networked and making yourself known prior to applying,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more you can do on the front end to de-risk your candidacy, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canada\u2019s top consultancy firms are freezing starting salaries, some for a third year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,136,61],"class_list":["post-327460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-r-fp","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}