Estimated market share of leading consulting firms worldwide 2018

Together the Big Four consultancy firms accounted for around 37.4 percent of the global consultancy market in 2018, with Deloitte’s market share of 10.9 percent making them the largest. Outside the Big Four, the largest consultancy firm was Accenture with a market share of 5.5 percent.

The Big Four

As suggested by the name, the Big Four are a group of four multinational accountancy consulting networks that sit atop the global consulting market. These four firms are PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG, all of which are headquartered in London apart from KPMG who have their headquarters in the Amsterdam metropolitan area. Taken together, the four accountancy firms generated almost 150 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2018.

Accenture versus the Big Four

Despite having a lower market share than the Big Four, fifth-placed consulting firm Accenture is actually larger in some respects. In 2018, the Dublin-headquartered firm recorded revenue of over 40 billion U.S. dollars and a global workforce of 459,000. This is higher than the revenue generated by most of the Big Four in that year, and Accenture’s workforce is significantly larger. However, it should be noted that Accenture provides different services to the Big Four, focusing on business strategy, technology and operations rather than accounting, risk and compliance