TL;DR

All four of the UK’s biggest accountancy firms told City AM they have either recently overhauled their graduate programmes or are in the middle of doing so. With AI handling routine first-year tasks such as data entry and basic report drafting, trainees are being moved onto judgement-heavy work earlier, and the firms are adding explicit training in communication, resilience and teamwork.

Less input, more review

For decades, a graduate’s first year at KPMG, Deloitte, EY or PwC mixed professional exams with low-level client work. The firms say AI has largely removed that layer. KPMG now puts exams at the front of its scheme so that trainees have the technical and regulatory grounding to advise clients from their second year, and pairs them with experienced staff before they go out on engagements.

“Graduates will become more involved in reviewing and exercising judgement rather than simply producing outputs,” said Marc Burrows, KPMG UK’s chief people officer.

This year’s intake will be among the first to have used large language models throughout university. PwC’s chief people officer, Phillippa O’Connor, described them as “digital natives” but said success increasingly depends on “a blend of technical, technological and human skills”.

Training the basics

Every firm said it now teaches core workplace skills directly. PwC has added debating sessions; KPMG said a lack of prior work experience means some graduates need coaching in basic workplace behaviour. EY’s UK and Ireland talent leader, Anne-Marie Balfe, named problem-solving, critical reasoning and teamwork as growing in importance. City AM notes that some City law firms have launched communication bootcamps covering skills as basic as making phone calls.

The overhaul comes as the firms are reported to be cutting graduate intakes, which the paper links to automation and a weaker economy, while still investing millions in training.

Looking forward

The same theme appears in employer research published today. A City & Guilds survey found 74% of employers now rate employability skills above technical expertise, yet 69% believe AI screening tools favour the technical. For UK firms without Big Four training budgets, the lesson is that if AI takes the entry-level tasks through which juniors once learned, the learning has to be designed back in deliberately. As the Big Four still train a large share of the country’s professional workforce, their choices will shape what “graduate-ready” means well beyond accountancy.