To leave a senior civil service job for a senior role in consultancy?

[Nonotmeagain]

I’m a senior civil servant and although I have a full on job that means long hours, I value the flexibility as I have a young daughter.

I’ve been offered a senior position in a consultancy firm. It pays 1.5 times my current pay. I am really worried that I will not have the flexibility I have in my current job in the civil service.

I want a change but would I be unreasonable to choose more money over flexibility and possibly impact on how I make time to spend with my daughter?

But you could get assurances on work and also buy holiday in Big 4 etc, depending on the type of work you'd be doing

Try www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/EY-Director-Salaries-E2784_D_KO3,11.htm Glassdoor. £150k is ballpark for Director (plus benefits and bonus). Could easily push to £170k, and range could potentially go to £250k for exceptional cases.

I'm a former consultant and a former civil servant (now in a large asset owner).

Honestly I found the flexibility a little better in consultancy. I worked harder, but they were less prescriptive on "how".

That being said, I think you're right to be concerned about the change!

I’m still considering the move. Any advice on what would be a good salary offer to land in, considering the 30% civil service pension and salary of about £110k?

If your current compensation package is c£140k I personally would want a decent amount above that to compensate for losing the other benefits of working for the Civil Service. I wouldn't consider below £160k as a package outside the CS.

Can you share which big4 it is, as they each have different salary bands for Director.

Feel free to PM me if you like.

I wouldn't. I've considered it when I was asked to apply for a consultancy job (currently g6 so not scs) but I know the consultants I work with work and they definitely do not have the flexibility that we do - although you can "buy" that if you manage your time and savings well. The money and opportunities are exciting and that makes it attractive but look carefully at the whole package and think about how you'd manage your accounting, tax, pension etc first

Personally, I would want at least £160k plus matching my current annual leave entitlement and flex to WFH sometimes. I assume that they will give some pension even though probably more in the region of 5%.

But it would depend on how appealing the job was to me as well.

So the "alpha" scheme - i.e. the current CS DB scheme builds up at 2.32% of your salary. I assume you're in this one though there may be legacy schemes I'm not aware of.

So on 110k, that's £2,550, which for tax purposes is actually worth £51k - they value at 20x the annual value for tax purposes (which is actually fairly generous of them tbh). Obviously you need to take your contributions off that, which I think will be around 8k, so I think your package currently is already worth 150k.

So I wouldn't think of it in terms of the 30% your employer puts in, but rather the value of the pension itself. There may be a better way of doing it but I go with the tax value for ease.

I think the other thing to be thinking about is whether you'd be a director who is likely "stuck" as a director, or if they're inviting you as a director on partnership track. I think the average partner profit share for e.g. PwC last year was nearly £1mil. But again even that varies significantly between the big 4 firms (e.g. I think KPMG is lower) and between different work areas within the big 4 firms.

I went the other way (left big 4, though at a lower grade) for the public sector pension and flexibility.

@Augend23 so sorry to be a pain, but would you mind helping me work out what my package is worth on £66k paying into Alpha?

Wouldn’t make any decisions based on being on partner track - there lies a pathway littered with numerous dead bodies

I second this. External hires (at director level) also seem to have lower odds of making partner than internals in my experience.

That's very fair and I think what I was sort of trying to say very badly. Serves me right for being up waaay past my bedtime. I guess ultimately any promises may not come through but I know some people at my firm never had a hope of making partner and I think if that had been me it would have made me decision for me.

@owiz - £66k * 0.0232 = £1,530 PA - so x20 = 30.6k value, less contributions of 4.9k = 25.7k in top of your salary.

So circa 90k? I would be interested if others have a better way of valuing it though. I have gone with taxable value as it was at least consistent and frankly my brain hurts with trying to compare the future draw down value of a current defined contribution with the future equivalent value of an index linked DB scheme.

Nah, don’t do it. Money isn’t worth trading the flexibility and the ability to say no without risking losing your job!

££££ is attractive but everyone I know who has gone when they’re younger than 50 hates it and wishes they’d never left!

Without knowing the terms of the offer etc OO it's difficult to quantify. I'm a consultant in the IT space and work for a global consultancy but am home based, get to do the school run several days a week and get flexibility to do what I need to do with the kids.

A lot depends on the client, I'm probably lucky insomuch as I work within a leadership group at the client who are great and expect flexibility too but can imagine some clients who are purely about work.

It is true - a lot does depend on the client and at the director level, you have the opportunity to shape that relationship, unlike the lower grades, but you'll want to keep the client on side, keep them happy - everyone loves repeat customers.

Thanks all. What about bonuses? Should I expect a guaranteed amount.

Where I am in the CS we are working long hours. I still have lots of flexibility but long days with back-to-back meetings. I don’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire but it feels like we are working consultancy hours.

I may well chicken out for fear of the unknown. I’m not interested in partner track. At least that’s not a motivating factor for me. I’d love to be able to go part-time in about 8-10 years.

Thank you.

Would asking for £15-20k plus bonus on top of that be on the low side considering 60% tax?

Thanks @Augend23

And salaried partner starts at £200k. The “average partner profit share” of nearly £1m is a skewed average with a smaller number of senior equity partners drawing way above average, and a much larger pyramid base of salaried and junior equity partners around the £200k mark.

Also worth noting turnover of Directors tends to be high, and not because they are being promoted.

(Not knocking your analysis @Augend23 , just adding context 🙂)

Yes, it would.

@Augend23 thanks so much I really appreciate you taking the time to do that, I've copied the equation for future reference!

Sorry I’m a bit confused between the figures of @user143677441 and @LookingOldTheseDays . Would £160-£170k plus bonus be low for a director if partners start at £200k plus profit share?

I’m ex CS now at Big 4 as a director. I would be very surprised if bonuses were guaranteed, but typically you might be looking at £20-45k dependent on how good a year it’s been.

Also with regards to travel and overnights, if you’ll be central govt focused that is probably going to be manageable. I’ve had 4 overnight stays in the past 9 years - that’s all! Build the portfolio of work YOU want to deliver - then no one can send you anywhere stupid.

I rarely work weekends, one holiday was trashed because of work (but that’s in 16 years of working here), and I might do one late night a week til about 9pm. I don’t leave the office at 5pm but with an 11 year old that’s not so bad, not like they are going to bed at 7pm.

There is loads of flex - went to a school event one day, picked up another day, then skived off to the hairdressers for a couple of hours on another day.

Working in CS is not going to be a breeze in the next few years. A tough spending settlement, a lot of cuts to implement, morale already on the floor. That’s no picnic.

I do mot regret my move at all!

The person - man of it makes any difference I knew to make your move, got £135k, and that was just before the pandemic. I think you might be able to push to £150k but the salaries at the top levels were not increased as a result of inflation to the same degree as the more junior roles.
At director level you need to bring home the bacon to earn more - so it's loaded on your performance bonus. You could negotiate a signing-on bonus /golden hello. Guaranteeing performance bonus - makes a bit of a joke out of the whole point of a performance bonus - it's meant to incentivise you.