Australia’s top consulting employers for graduates
Now in its eleventh year, the Top Graduate Employers rankings places the spotlights on Australia’s top companies for graduates. Meet the top employers in the consulting industry.
Compiled by The Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE), the annual Top Graduate Employers ranking is determined entirely by survey responses from graduates who have spent the past year with their employer.
This year, the survey received feedback from some 3,000 respondents on 25 or so categories ranging from company culture and work-life balance to compensation and benefits.
Landing in the third spot for 2023, behind just the Victorian Department of Transport and Carsales.com, is locally-born international consultancy Partners in Performance, which was founded by influential consulting leader Skipp Williamson in 1996.
The management consultancy has since grown to somewhere in the ballpark of 750 professionals across six continents, and prides itself on its distinct culture along with supporting and developing its employees.
Global tech consultancy Capgemini (including its consulting wing Capgemini Invent) returns to the top ten following the previous year’s list, this time landing at 4th. Also making the top 20 in 2021, the firm has built up a reputation as a popular employer, consistently featuring on the similar annual GradConnection list dating back to at least 2017.
In addition, Capgemini has been named ‘Employer of the Year’ for the past two consecutive years at the Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards.
Another highly consistent performer in the Top Graduate Employers rankings is global technology and software consultancy Thoughtworks, which has Australian offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and a local headcount of more than 400. Thoughtworks – also recently recognised as one of the best workplaces for women – came in at eighth, and has never fallen out of the top 20 since the list’s inception in 2013, including a stunning six podium appearances.
In at 15th (of the 75 top employers ranked) as Australia’s fifth-largest accounting and consulting network of its kind, BDO heads a slew of other mid-tier competitors, including RSM (23rd), Pitcher Partners (31st), Grant Thornton (32nd) and SW Accountants and Advisors at 42nd.
Industry giant Deloitte (51st) was the only member of the Big Four to feature – although notably, Big Four peers PwC and EY were listed last year and may have chosen not to participate in 2023.
Of the remaining consultancies, Publicis Sapient, the digital transformation consulting wing of advertising giant Publicis was also a member of the top 20, having doubled the size of its business in Australia over the past two years and grown its local headcount to approximately 230.
Melbourne-headquartered restructuring specialist McGrathNicol meanwhile came in at 41st place, and will next year celebrate its 20th anniversary since spinning out of KPMG.
Note: the Top Graduate Employers ranking by AAGE is based on an opt-in approach, meaning that companies sign up to participate in the review process.
In related news, last year ConsultancyAU released the inaugural edition of its Australia’s top consulting firms list, identifying the country’s leading players across 40+ sectors and 40+ areas of expertise. The ranking is non-opt-in and non-commercial, with the aim of providing an inclusive, industry-wide benchmark of the landscape.
