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?

Bonuses are very much not guaranteed i Big4.

Also, performance reviews (which is what the bonus will be based on) are thorough and brutal to a degree that you won't have ever seen in the CS. There are positives to this - it tends to be a high performing culture, and people are pushed hard to deliver - but also negatives.

The point I was trying to make when I said it was low was that £160k vs your current package is not really an increase. If you use that salary to top your pension up enough to match your current CS pension benefit, then you'll just be breaking even really. (And if you choose not to top your pension up you'll be berter off now but worse in retirement.) The bonus will be the only real difference.

So if you move it needs to be because you want the change, and want to do something different, rather than because you think it'll be an immediate pay rise in real terms.

So what do you reckon would be a good negotiated pay?

@Comtesse that’s how it feels where I am. It has been relentless and unlikely to get better and the budget to get things done keeps getting smaller. It’s also difficult to recruit talented staff.

I’ve been thinking about this thread and the post upthread does resonate. I moved into public sector consultancy, as you would expect given my professional experience, and am currently working client side. I am genuinely relieved to be there as a consultant. Morale is low, leadership isn’t great, performance issues are everywhere and I’ve at least come in with the locus of potentially being able to make improvements without fighting to be heard.

I once asked a colleague why they had moved out of a senior public sector role into consultancy and they said they were sick of having ideas no one wanted to hear, and now they are paid for it.

I am struggling with elements of the consultancy culture, but I am finding the private sector ethos of valuing your strengths and using them (even if it is to make money) refreshing.

Helpful thread, the issues resonate indeed... @Finallybreathingout which aspects of the consultancy culture are the more tricky ones, in order to assist with a balanced view? Thanks

Adjusting to an organisation purely driven for profit is odd - it has pros (see above, and in public sector consulting at least it does feel like more of a genuine meritocracy where I am) but also you are very aware that profit is the bottom line and you are there to make the company money. There is quite a lot of, I think sincere, talk of the work that we do contributing to improving public services, and that is what the projects I see are doing, and I do think consultancy is more cost effective than the media suggests - just see how much discussion on pension on this thread! The CS is getting me at lower cost that if I were permanent right now. There are a lot of really clever able people, and some impressive senior people who came in as industry hires. I’ve seen very little of the coasting I was so used to in the public sector. The culture is proactive, you are expected to develop yourself and the company, and prove it to get promoted.

The big challenges are that it’s huge, and you don’t have a defined role or team. I found that really destabilising as I missed the structure and the clear purpose of CS roles. You are told to go and make yourself an internal network, and if you would find that challenging, consultancy would not be for you. It’s something I’ve always seen as a strength and I have found it difficult, especially working remotely. The whole environment is ambiguous. With the proactivity comes the need to determine your own path to a great extent and find opportunities. Just working out the landscape can feel impenetrable and it’s acknowledged that many people coming into consultancy later in their careers find the first year or so very difficult in many cases. I have thought about resigning multiple times! I am in a trickier situation than some as I am not physically close to an office where I have colleagues and was sold the job on it being wholly remote; but I now find that actually being in the office 2/3 days a week would be hugely helpful in that networking piece, and logistically it’s very difficult for me - I have felt missold. But I am getting there very slowly and obviously it’s not an issue if you’re not in my situation.

Family friendly working is something my company feels ahead of some other Big 4s on, and so far I haven’t noticed a huge difference in working hours between public and private sectors, although I know directors who are pulling far longer hours than I am (but then I know SCS who are too). I have a formal part time working pattern, have bought additional holiday as a benefit to take me up to far more than CS - although no flexi - and should be able to take a month of unpaid leave next summer if I want to.

sold the job on it being wholly remote; but I now find that actually being in the office 2/3 days a week would be hugely helpful in that networking piece

I agree with this - being present/visible will be absolutely essential for building your internal network. Your internal network will often generate as much work as your external one (e.g. colleagues in other service lines will recommend you to clients), so it is important.

It's hard to say, as it also depends on your other reasons for leaving. If you are in an area where morale is low and things are stressful, there will be 'push' factors to take into account.

£160k would be the minimum to break even IMO, how much more you'd want to leave is down to your circumstances.

I can also relate to posts above re: morale. There were some big plus points about working in consultancy that I really enjoyed. You don't see people coasting along, it's a high performance culture which is energising to be part of. You will be pushed to develop, which suits some people but not others. The environment can be cutthroat, but in some respects so can the CS (depending on dept).

I’m interested in knowing whether people would be typically attracted by say a £20k increase above break even to move. that would be roughly £650 extra a month to spend considering this £20k will be taxed at 60%.

Doesn't that depend on your personal circumstances? If the move provides an opportunity for growth, promotion, more interesting work, more motivating environment, more talented colleagues, the opportunity to achieve something worthwhile. I think if you are considering moving for money alone at this level, that's not a good enough reason.

Agreed.

You're not comparing identical jobs, so you can't consider just the money alone.

I’m not considering just the money. It’s not even the biggest consideration apart from not selling myself short. So it is an important consideration. If I were motivated just by the money I would have left ages ago.

It sounds like there will be a loss of flexibility to some degree and a different way of working. I am interested in knowing what value others typically put on the impact of changing to a new job, less flexibility.

Based on the numbers given about partners base salary and directors salary, it seems it would rarely be financially sensible to leave the CS for a director role at a Big 4 when you are an SCS.

However, it might be that what I’m asking isn’t clear.

Well.. as I said earlier, the pension issue is subjective. For some people, it may be better to have more money now than in the pension pot. Depends on where you are. My civil service pension after 15 years is so good that I don't think I need much more in it, so I am considering a move out when my kids are older so that I can have more cash for things like putting them through university

Yep, and an issue for me as although I’m not far from a regional office, none of my obvious colleagues are based there. So it’s a four hour round trip to an office with anyone I need to mix with and I just had no idea. I think if this was easier my whole experience would have been more positive.

* "Adjusting to an organisation purely driven for profit is odd -*"

I really don't think that's a fair assessment of all the big consultancies. Of course profit has to be made for the firm to continue and it's one criteria to consider at a senior level. But people can be extremely mission-driven around helping organizations and teams function better, improving healthcare, diversity, sustainability performance in organizations, helping find the right answer for organizations to flourish, coaching to boost performance, improving what customers/ patients get from services,... and that's all within the profitable client work. Then there are huge pro bono projects you can work on, and volunteer days.... it is also very very normal for consultants to be serving non profits or doing their own volunteer work in parallel.

In my experience, a good proportion of consultants are very driven from a mission point of view and not focussed on profit.

Agree with @BraveGoldie here - particularly if you are working in public sector consulting. Maybe it’s different if you work in banking or FTSE100 clients, but I genuinely feel like I am helping to solve important challenges not just making profit.

The other thing to bear in mind OP is bonuses. They aren’t guaranteed but they can be pretty substantial if you and the firm have had a good year. It’s not just about the monthly salary increases!

I didn’t mean to suggest that my colleagues are all of those things. I even said in my post that people are committing to making things better. I don’t mean that the ethos isn’t good.

But there is a lot of pressure to be billable and accountable for yourself which you don’t get in a non-profit workplace. And there is a clear anxiety about the company’s overall performance. It does after all have to make money to continue to exist, which is very different to the public sector. That is what I was referring to. Apologies if it sounded like a bigger value judgement than it was meant to be.

I still haven’t made a decision. We could do with the extra money given cost of living pressures but I want a good work-life balance and flexibility.

I feel I have 10 good years of full-time work in me and then would go part time or do something slower pace. I do not want to work like this up to retirement.

I am a salaried partner in big 4 management consultancy. I have great work life balance and have worked 4 days a week for over ten years since my first kid was born. My experience is that I have always had flexibility in my Big 4 job. As a Director, even more so, as you run the projects, control your diary etc. I generally don’t work late nights and the world has to be ending nowadays for me to work a weekend. All big 4 and teams within them will be different. I would go for the interviews, meet the partners you will be working for, understand their offer and go with your gut. Good luck OP.

I am not sure where 60% tax comes from? The highest rate is 45%, even with national insurance contributions etc it doesn’t come up to 60.

It's explained here:
https://www.buzzacott.co.uk/insights/exposing-the-60-income-tax-rate

Basically withdrawal of personal allowance gives an effective marginal rate of 60% for earnings in £100k-£125k band.

Hi @mikulkin, it is as @Taxpers described. Not many people are aware but it is worth bearing in mind when negotiating your remuneration package.