PA Consulting Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

There are a good number of down to earth, nice and surprisingly fun individuals working at the firm.
Can provide a good variety of work experiences.
As with most consultancies, work life balance and potential amounts of travel is suited towards young and singletons.

Cons

Bonus scheme generates pockets of selfishness amongst senior staff.
The firm might continue to shrink this year if it fails to deliver on its pledge on improving renumeration.
As with most consultancies, work life balance and potential amounts of travel is suited towards young and singletons.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at the total staff numbers over the past few years, just how many will be left in a couple of years time? Something has to be done immediately to address it.

Pros

The people you work with are all intelligent and friendly. If you're proactive, you can find people to learn from. There is a variety of projects and you can push to go on the projects that you are interested in as long as you make it known how eager you are.

Cons

The structure of the company and the senior management make it very hard to work collaboratively and to get recognition and support. Unfairness exists in reward structures and not enough emphasis is placed on developing the workforce in a tailored fashion - one size does not fit all.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-engage with the workforce

Pros

1) Nice colleagues, specially A-PC level
2) Business transparency (EIS)

Cons

1) Lack of long-term strategy and direction to grow business
2) Incentive system not promoting collaboration
3) No "great place to work" culture

Advice to Senior Management

Address cons...

Pros

Good place to work, encouraged to follow your personal interests

Cons

Can be political but no more so than any other firm, very utilisation driven performance management. Sometimes internal efforts are overshadowed by utilisation.

Advice to Senior Management

Speed up the recruitment process!

Pros

* everybody treats each other as equals
* friendly environment
* exposure to a wide number or projects allows you to build diverse experiences

Cons

* success only comes with networking
* promotion seems to be a political game at times
* during the recession, they made redundancies that nobody expected
* promotion and success depends on you being sold onto projects which ultimately isn't in your hands. the managers at PA need to sell projects for you to work on.

Advice to Senior Management

* develop the brand further through advertising and PR
* get out of the financial services sector
* trust emloyees more, reduce admin and rules

Pros

- good people
 - interesting work if you're lucky
 - nice offices
 - can get okay bonuses in a good year

Cons

- non-existent strategy and leadership
 - poor communications
 - bullying culture (think of the head of the defence practice)
 - white and middle class, not one black partner - lack of diversity a major issue
 - huge cost base due to massive admin overheard - mainly because senior management don't trust the consultants and spend much of their time monitoring them
 - poor benefits package - 23 days leave, etc.
 - over reliance on public sector work, non-existent in financial services

Advice to Senior Management

- sell or resign
 - bring in some external people who have experience of growing a firm
 - sack 50% of the partner group
 - change the remuration model
 - treat your people better

Pros

challenging, bright people doing great work

Cons

Poor decision making and communication from management

Advice to Senior Management

Take clear action and communicate it well.

Pros

Great colleagues and intelligent debate is the norm - rare these days

Lack of 'rank' pulling is refreshing

Alan Middleton is an inspirational leader - shame this is not the case for circa 50% of the Partner Group..

Good work life balance - but it is what you make it and I accept not that easy at junior levels

Luckily there are not many 'freshers' and you are not forced to sell 10 juniors for every 1 senior just to make the 'pyramid' work

Cons

I look at the Partner group and especially at recent promotions and for every 1 truely deserving case you see 2 or 3 others promoted because they just consistently sat on large Govt. projects managing risk - this is not in my book a good reason to get promoted

Little top down Business Development when you are an MC. In most Prof Service firms the partners drive this aspect - in my experience, not at PA

PA's Consulting base (but not its admin base) seems to be shrinking fast. Every day another round of leaving cards appears...and I think I will be next as I'm not planning on sticking around untill we hit a 50:50 ratio of admin:consulting staff

Advice to Senior Management

Morale is poor and people are leaving as they can't see where the firm is heading. Recent disaterous reorganisations haven't helped - you need to do something!

Pros

Massive variety of work, if you are fortunate enough to get it
Cutting edge work

Cons

It is very easy to end up working on projects not suited to your skills or doing work you do not enjoy.
Importance of utilisation is too high - and hits you hard in the pocket if you do not exceed your targets.
As a lower-ranked member of staff, there is often very little you can do to ensure you get put on projects, yet it is you whose performance, and therefore bonus, suffers.
If you are on a project outside of London you are quickly forgotten about

Advice to Senior Management

Visit client sites outside of london and spend time with the project team to hear their concerns and views.

Pros

- Nice people at junior levels
- No real pressure to stretch yourself
- Bonus can be decent in a good year

Cons

- Greedy partners focused on own bonus rather than developing business
- Not enough leaders to learn from, unless your focus is IT project management

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in your people