Consultants cutting 35,000 jobs at UBS are paid an average of £254k each
Helping banks cut headcount can be a lucrative profession.
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Oliver Wyman Limited, the UK subsidiary of the New York-headquartered management consultant, published its 2023 accounts earlier this week. As it turns out, what was a very poor year for banking turned out to be a pretty excellent one for banking’s consultants.
Oliver Wyman paid an average of £254k ($341k) per head to its UK staff across last year, up ever so slightly on the £242k ($325k) it paid per head the year before that. At the same time, headcount increased by 8% as the firm added consulting professionals and cut back on its management & administrative staff.
The leaping wage bill, which went up by 13% between 2022 and 2023, was justified by the leaping turnover at the firm, which went from £481m ($646m) in 2022 to £645m ($866m) in 2023. A chunk of that new revenue likely came from UBS, which employed the firm to oversee its integrating with – or rather consumption of – Credit Suisse last year. It’s unclear if the decision to cut 35,000 people from the combined entity was Oliver Wyman’s, or a UBS original.
It might have been a bit of a surprise when Oliver Wyman managed to beat the traditional big consultants – McKinsey, Bain, and Boston – to the UBS contract. It might not be so surprising to Oliver Wyman partner and vice chair Huw van Steenis, who happened to be, earlier in his career, a senior advisor to Sergio Ermotti – the UBS CEO overseeing the Credit Suisse integration. lol.
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