McKinsey, Bain and BCG consultants are having a hard time escaping to investment banking

It’s a tough time to be a consultant. Thousands of laid-off McKinsey employees are soon to be looking for a new job, and the threat of AI (or rather “someone that knows how to use AI”) is looming over everyone else. Consultants with an eye on the door may be considering finance as an option, but transitioning is easier said than done.

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A recent report from consulting interview prep site Management Consulted looked at consulting ‘exits’ for over 1,600 client-facing employees across McKinsey, Bain & Co and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) from August to November of this year. 13.7% of consultants escaped to finance, making it the second most popular destination, but less than a quarter of those (3% of the total) left consulting for an investment bank, hedge fund or trading firm. Just 22% of those banking exits were in the US, while 18% were in the UK.

It also appears that those leaving for banks are relatively junior. While 8.8% of overall exits were in ‘vice president’ roles, only 3.4% of that fraction worked in investment banking (0.3% of total exits). That’s probably good news for the VPs themselves, as the title connotes a much more senior position elsewhere. Managing directors, meanwhile, make up a more modest 2.9% of total exits.

Leaving consulting for banking definitely isn’t a lifestyle choice. Bankers are known to work much longer hours, and a consultant who previously worked in M&A told us in 2023 that his life is “unimaginably better as a consultant.” The pay in banking is likely a factor, but also bankers are regarded as specialists, which are less susceptible to AI than generalists (i.e. consultants). That hasn’t stopped banks planning to cut juniors with AI in favour of ‘digital colleagues’.

Exits for private equity and venture capital are actually more popular. They’re broken down as a separate sector, encompassing 5.1% of total exits. There has been increased demand in recent years for AI ‘operating executives’ who can look for ways to implement AI into the workflows of their portfolio companies, something that’s all the rage among consultants today.

What other kinds of finance jobs are consultants leaving for? The report says fintech firms, alongside traditional finance and private capital, are part of a group that “collectively represent[s] a large share of exits.”

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