Big Four graduate intakes are down by up to a third. Investor Volker Hirsch says the shift is only starting, and that the time to plan for it is now, not later
The debate about AI and entry-level jobs has moved past speculation. The Big Four accountancy firms, among the largest recruiters of graduates in the UK, have cut their intakes sharply, and the tasks once handed to juniors are increasingly being done by machines. Technology investor Volker Hirsch believes that is the leading edge of a far wider shift in how junior work gets done. Speaking to Leeds Today at the Climb festival, the Brainworks Ventures partner argued that the pace of change means governments, employers and educators cannot afford to wait and see. His message was less a prediction than a prompt: start planning while there is still time to shape the outcome.
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Why This Matters For Leeds
Cities built on professional services have the most to lose and the most to gain. Leeds pyramid; law, accountancy, banking, consulting makes it an early test of whether the entry-level route gets redesigned rather than simply shrunk. The practical questions are; how firms build a junior pipeline when the starter tasks are automated.
The Evidence on AI and Entry-Level Jobs
The clearest numbers are in professional services. KPMG cut its graduate intake from 1,399 in 2023 to 942, a fall of roughly a third, while Deloitte reduced its scheme by 18%, EY by 11% and PwC by 6%, according to figures reported by City AM. Job board data shows accountancy graduate adverts across the UK are down 44% year on year, outpacing the wider slowdown in graduate vacancies, with more routine work also moving offshore. Volker Hirsch, who began his own career as a corporate lawyer, argues that the tasks traditionally given to juniors, document review, first-pass analysis, data entry, are the most automatable, and therefore the first to change. Skilled trades are far harder to automate, he notes, which is one reason apprenticeships in those fields are rising. The paradox is uncomfortable: the roles that were the easiest way in are the ones disappearing fastest.
“Every parliamentary session should probably open with an hour setting aside AI.”
— Volker Hirsch, Partner, Brainworks Ventures
A Call to Plan, Not to Panic
Volker Hirsch’s central argument is about time, not catastrophe. Previous shifts, the Industrial Revolution, the internet, took 30 or 40 years to reshape working life, giving societies a generation to adjust. He believes AI will move considerably faster, and that institutions built for slower change need to begin the work now rather than react later. He argues tax systems are not currently designed to capture the value that automation creates, and points to ideas such as sovereign wealth funds taking stakes in large AI companies as one route to sharing the gains more widely. He declines to forecast disaster, sketching both a future in which people work less and have more time, and a less equal alternative, before settling on a hunch somewhere in between. What troubles him is not the technology but the quiet around it: too few governments, he says, are treating AI and entry-level jobs as a live question.
Read more Leeds business news across all sectors.
Sources:
- City AM: https://www.cityam.com/big-four-slash-graduate-jobs-as-ai-takes-on-entry-level-work/
- Business Quarter (same figures, describes KPMG’s cut as ~33%): https://businessquarter.co.uk/big-four-cut-graduate-roles-as-ai-rises/
- Scottish Financial News, citing Indeed data (44% fall vs 2023, against a 33% decline for all graduate jobs): https://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/articles/big-four-slash-graduate-jobs-as-ai-takes-over-entry-level-tasks
- The Finance Story attributes the same 44% figure to Adzuna: https://thefinancestory.com/big4-graduate-hiring-slowdown-due-to-ai-offshoring
