PwC’s slimmed-down Australian business brings in $2.1 billion in 2025 revenues
The Australian branch of Big Four professional services firm PwC has banked $2.1 billion in revenues for 2025, slipping a further 3 percent from previous highs pushing towards $3.5 billion.
The accounting and consulting firm is again down from the previous year’s figures of $2.2 billion, recording negative growth for the second straight year since its government tax scandal and public sector consultancy sell-off, before which it was generating $3.4 billion.
The figures however belie the impact to the remaining partners – a count which now sits at just 575 compared to a peak of almost 900 in 2023 – with personal income rising to an average of over $810,000, up by another 6 percent despite profits also continuing to fall.
That magical maths is largely based on the firm rejigging its operating model, stripping out its workforce, and further rolling out AI to boost efficiency, with a recent AFR report noting that a team of six agentic AI-armed advisors can now do the job of 40 in a fraction of the time. Altogether, PwC’s local headcount nowadays sits around the 6,100-mark, whereas it once read closer to 10,000.
The contradiction in numbers was further reflected in PwC chief Kevin Burrowes’ upbeat statement on last year’s results; “In 2025, we embraced extraordinary and rapid change. When confronted with the challenges of AI, we didn’t stand still. We moved deliberately and decisively, and our ambitious AI plan has enhanced our business and the work we produce for our clients.”
A further indication of the firm’s continued evolution can be seen in its service lines. While PwC has always leaned a bit more towards assurance over consulting compared to its rivals, that revenue gap, previously less than $20 million, has now widened to more than $100 million – or $792 million against $688 million via advisory, with tax & legal bringing in the remaining $473 million.
PwC’s advisory division was further impacted by the sale of its restructuring arm to Teneo in the middle of last year (now revealed to have been for a sum of $27.1 million), which followed the dumping of its lucrative public sector business and then Indigenous consulting line, the latter picked up by Deloitte and renamed Yamagigu. On the flip-side, PwC again made no acquisitions last year.
Without rehashing its prior misdemeanours, the refreshed iteration of PwC in Australia comes across as confident in its current trajectory, with chair John Green stating; “We’re now moving into a new chapter of sustainable growth, anchored in a culture of curiosity, collaboration and challenge. As AI accelerates, we’re keeping up the pace by investing even more in our people and technology.”
