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5 Reasons Why Deloitte Consultants Travel So Much

By: Author Will Bennett

Posted on Last updated: November 9, 2023

The majority of Deloitte consultants will spend a lot of their time traveling. But why is this? And how much travel do they actually do?

Deloitte consultants will often travel several times a month , often for days at a time. They travel to visit their clients in their locations, attend training and conferences, and attend business meetings.

When I’ve been researching how to get into consulting, the amount of travel required seems to be close to the top of lots of people’s agendas. It’s both a good and bad thing, depending on your viewpoint – a way of seeing the world, or a barrier to your work-life balance.

The main 5 reasons that Deloitte consultants travel so much are:

• To perform audits
• To conduct client meetings
• To attend conferences
• Training and workshops
• Project implementation

In this post, I’ll take a look at:

• The 5 top reasons why Deloitte consultants travel
• How much do Deloitte consultants travel

Table of Contents

Do Deloitte Consultants Travel?

Almost all Deloitte consultants will travel to some extent, with some spending many weeks or even months of a year on the road.

Travel is pressurized and work-focused, and there is often little scope for sightseeing. This is business travel – staying in hotels, business meetings, meeting clients, and all that kind of thing.

Here are the top 5 reasons why Deloitte consultants travel:

5 Reasons Why Deloitte Consultants Travel

1. performing audits.

Performing audits is a key role of Deloitte.

Deloitte audits many of the world’s largest multinational corporations. Many of the Fortune 500 are on their books. (Source)

Audits require on-site visits to perform some of the following tasks:

• Verification of financial records
• Verification of other data
• Gathering information about a business

Deloitte consultants will regularly require to travel to their clients for auditing purposes. This will be both domestically and internationally.

The exact number of trips for this purpose depends on:

• The sector you are working in

2. Client Meetings

A big role of consultants is truly getting to know how their client’s businesses work.

A great vehicle for doing this is traveling to meet clients in businesses. Consultants will meet with:

• Stakeholders

Traveling to meet clients in person can really help to increase trust and build relationships.

The distance of travel and frequency will really depend on the nature of the role of the consultant and the project they are working on.

3. Conferences And Networking Events

Deloitte is a truly global organization, which operates in around 150 countries throughout the world.

Consultants will often be required to travel to conferences and meetings. These conferences allow them to:

• Network with their peers
• Hear from experts about their niche of expertise
• Learn about the latest industry trends and technologies

Sometimes consultants will also get the opportunity to speak at these events or showcase what they have done.

A big focus of these events is networking. It really helps to build your power team of players in the industry.

4. Training And Workshops

Deloitte offers extensive training to its employees to keep the skills of its workforce high, and also to help with rapid progression up the corporation hierarchy for high-achieving staff.

Deloitte’s training program is geared toward helping staff:

• Acquire new skills
• Enhance their expertise
• Increase their knowledge
• Stay up-to-date with industry developments

Consultants will often have to travel to workshops or training sessions, either domestically or internationally.

Deloitte also offers training in the form of:

• Online sessions
• On-the-job training
• Mentoring programs

5. Project Implementation

Probably the biggest source of travel on this list is project implementation.

Consultants will often need to be onsite when a client is implementing a project. The consultant will be ensuring that it is running smoothly.

Traveling to the site will help the consultant to:

• See the business systems and practices firsthand
• Speak to relevant employees about systems
• Gather paperwork and data

How Much Deloitte Consultants Travel

The amount of travel that a consultant will be required to do will vary and will depend on a range of factors, such as:

• The sector they are working in
• What project they are working on at a particular point and where that business is located
• Their particular role

However, in general, travel is common and will probably be somewhere in the following spectrum:

Some consultants will be more towards the lighter end of the spectrum, with maybe one trip per month, while others may be towards the higher end, with extensive travel each month.

As a real-world example of this, consultants who work on audit engagements need to often travel more regularly to work on-site.

Consultants who work on strategic projects, on the other hand, may be able to work primarily from the Deloitte offices or even remotely .

Deloitte Travel Vs Regional Firms

You may be interested in the different levels of travel of Deloitte consultants compared to regional firms .

In general, consultants at the Big 4 (Deloitte, PwC, EY , and KPMG) will travel more than consultants at regional firms.

This is because of the size and scope of the Big 4 companies. These corporations operate across multiple continents and work with businesses that are complex and multinational.

Regional firms, on the other hand, often offer services that are:

• Small or medium-sized businesses
• Are targeting a focused niche or part of an industry

Regional firms may also access more local training and conferences, and have a more geographically targeted client base than the Big 4 firms, such as Deloitte.

For some people, extensive travel seems like the dream ticket.

However, for others, it resonates with a lack of work-life balance.

Will Bennett is a Cambridge graduate. He worked as a Consultant and Senior Consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in London. Will is the Founder of The Cambridge Consultant.

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What it's like to work at Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY: pay, perks and RTO policies

• The "Big Four" are the world's largest accounting and consulting firms.
• They're known for paying high salaries — but some have laid off staff in recent months.
• Here's how Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY compare in terms of pay, perks, and RTO policies.

The "Big Four" are the world's largest accounting and consulting firms, with a combined 1.3 million employees worldwide.

Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY) are known for paying high salaries. However, all four have laid off staff over the past year in a bid to trim costs amid a challenging economic environment.

Here's how the Big Four stack up when it comes to pay, perks, and return-to-office (RTO) policies.

Business Insider analyzed disclosure data from the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification to work out how much each member of the Big Four pays its employees.

At Deloitte, salaries range from $49,219 a year for entry-level analysts to as much as $875,000 a year for senior principals.

The firm's US operation employs just over 170,000 people across 80 offices, with its headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York.

Employees are entitled to 16 weeks of paid parental leave, can take three or six-month sabbaticals at 40% of their base pay, and are eligible for a wellbeing subsidy worth up to $1,000.

Deloitte doesn't have a set RTO policy, although this may vary from team to team.

David Rizzo, a talent strategy executive, offers his tips for landing a job at Deloitte.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) pays its entry-level associate roles a minimum of $68,000 a year — and its highest-paid principals earn nearly $1.4 million, according to the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification data.

The firm's headquarters are in London, but it has about 75,000 employees in the US, spread across 79 offices.

PwC offers employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave and has a student loan paydown benefit plan that pays off up to $1,200 a year for associates and senior associates.

The majority of US-based employees follow the firm's hybrid model, which allows them to spend up to half their time working remotely.

Rod Adams, talent acquisition and onboarding leader, offers his tips for landing a job at PwC .

At KPMG, associates make at least $61,000 a year, while managing directors are paid up to $485,000.

The firm says it's the fastest-growing Big Four member in the US, with 40,000 employees and partners and some 75 offices. Its headquarters are in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, but it has an executive office on Park Avenue in New York City.

Like PwC, KPMG staff can take up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave. It also offers firm-wide nine-day breaks in July and December, which it believes encourages employees to book time off without worrying about catching up on work.

Most KPMG employees follow a hybrid working pattern, although a limited number are either fully remote or fully office-based.

Here's how to land a consulting job at KPMG , according to Sandy Torchia, the vice chair of talent and culture.

According to the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification data, EY entry-level accountants and auditors earn $54,000 a year and up. Managers earn an average of $320,000 a year, while computer and information systems managers can earn up to $600,000 a year.

The firm's headquarters are in London, but it employs more than 60,000 people across 131 locations in the US. Last year EY announced it would be laying off 3,000 of those workers due to "overcapacity" in certain divisions, Bloomberg reported .

Like Deloitte, EY offers 16 weeks of paid parental leave and runs a wellbeing fund that reimburses most of its US-based employees for up to 75% of their gym memberships, as well as other health-related costs.

The firm has hit headlines by launching a stricter return-to-office push than its competitors, including using "turnstile access data" to track workers' movements in the UK.

Ginnie Carlier, a head of talent for EY, reveals the qualities she looks for candidates and explains how to showcase them in interviews.

Correction: April 22, 2024 — This story has been updated to reflect the current number of PwC staff in the US.

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