PwC UK graduate applications rise 35% amid entry-level role scarcity

PwC UK has seen a 35% year-on-year increase in graduate applications for its 2026 intake, receiving 60,000 inquiries for 2,000 available positions, according to the Financial Times.

The surge comes despite recent experts predicting that generative AI will reshape the traditional pyramid structure of professional services firms by automating entry-level tasks.

The FT has learnt that while some consultancies have moved to offshore or automate routine work, PwC UK management confirmed a strategic decision to retain certain manual tasks to help junior staff develop professional judgment. 

The firm noted that exposing staff to subjective areas, such as auditing accounts that may appear binary to AI, is essential for training future managers.

The firm has recently reduced its graduate intake by a couple of hundred compared with the previous years and has abandoned a global target to add 100,000 staff by mid-2026. 

However, the company attributed recent UK job cuts to broader market conditions rather than AI displacement. In the last financial year, PwC reported flat revenue growth, with contractions in consulting and risk advisory offset by performance in audit, deals, and tax.

According to the FT, to manage the increased volume of applicants, the firm has shifted its assessment criteria to prioritise human skills such as communication, empathy, and emotional resilience. 

Unlike some competitors, PwC has declined to use AI assistants in its hiring tests, focusing instead on cultural fit and long-term skill acquisition.

Phillippa O’Connor, chief people officer at PwC UK, told the outlet: “When we did the strategic workforce planning, there’s a version of that pyramid where you take out a bigger component of the bottom. And then you look forward to three to five years and say, ‘What will be the skills that our then managers have that we don’t think are automatable? How will we have trained those?

“To have a successful business with the knowledge, experience and skillset to deliver a client’s needs, these skills are not acquirable, you have to build them internally. We want people who can be really successful in an organisation and culture, not who can prompt well, get the answer from AI and tell it to us. The productivity gains from AI mean a graduate trainee does what a senior associate did three to five years ago. What that does is it puts more pressure on human skills.”