Big four should pay graduate auditors more, FRC chair says

The chair of the Financial Reporting Council, Sir Jan du Plessis, has urged the big four accounting firms to raise wages for junior auditors, the FT reported. 

Senior partners at the Big Four — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — have claimed that criticism from politicians and regulators, including high-profile fines for poor work, is making it more difficult to recruit and retain auditors. 

But in an interview with the FT, du Plessis stated that firms “have the resources available to increase the pay levels of more junior people that they want to attract into their firms and it’s up to them whether they want to do so”.

The average partner salary at the firms has increased in recent years, exceeding £1m a year at two of the firms. But for graduates, salaries are not keeping up with inflation and PwC is the only firm to have raised its London-based audit graduates pay to £32,000 per year. 

Du Plessis also defended FRC’s approach of naming and shaming audit partners when their work is under investigation. 

He said to the FT: “If we want to maintain standards in public life, individuals who want to have big jobs like that have to accept that from time to time the ball is going to bounce wrongly for them.”