Winning promotion to the partnership of a Big Four firm was once a golden ticket to a lucrative job for life. But accountancy firms have begun quietly demoting partners in the UK as they move to concentrate profits among top performers.
KPMG and EY have removed members of their equity partnership – the senior practitioners who own the firm and share its profits – and instead offered them “salaried partner” roles, several people with knowledge of the matter told the FT.
Equity partners have traditionally lost their status only when they leave the firms, often when they reached a mandatory retirement age. But pressure is increasing to tightly control which professionals share in the firms’ profits, leading to the introduction in recent years of a “salaried partner” rank.
The salaried rung was intended as a way of retaining senior staff by offering the status of the “partner” title while restricting access to the profit pool shared by their top echelons, prompting claims of “title inflation”.
KPMG – where average equity partner pay last year was £880,000 – told some partners in recent years they would be “retired” from the equity partnership and instead made a salaried partner, according to six people with knowledge of the matter.
The move is a departure from the practice of simply asking underperforming senior partners to retire, which has become more widespread in the sector in recent years.
Some KPMG partners had been “called into rooms for what would be positioned as career conversations … but ultimately they needed to get the number of equity partners down”, said one of the people with knowledge of the matter.
The person added that some of the partners chose to leave rather than be relegated to a salaried role, saying they felt blindsided after receiving positive feedback and being given no opportunity to improve their performance.
Rival firm EY has also demoted a small number of equity partners to salaried roles since introducing the salaried-partner rung in 2022, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Pushing partners out, or “departnering”, is not unique to accountancy practices. Partnerships in other sectors, such as Goldman Sachs, carefully manage membership of their top ranks. Law firms also de-equitise underperforming partners to protect profitability, particularly in mid-tier firms.
The Big Four – Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC – are under increasing pressure to keep partner profits high as they combat slowing demand for consulting services.
The size of individual KPMG equity partners’ share of profits is determined by reference to the number of “units” they are allocated. Under current boss Jon Holt, the firm has reallocated units, placing less weight on tenure and more on rewarding partners who bring in business, said several people familiar with the changes.
Some partners had grown “slightly arrogant” and come to expect annual increases in their allocation, said one of the people, describing a “shock” when some were told their units could be reduced.
Some people at the firm have used the term “Huncs”, or high-units-no-clients, to describe partners who hold significant equity stakes but do not generate fees.
“There is a sort of clearing of house,” said a person at the firm. “There are a lot of senior partners … holding on to significant units but they’re not actually working with any particular clients,” the person said, adding that some of these partners “have been let go recently”.
Since Holt’s appointment in 2021, KPMG has increased profit per partner, outperforming both PwC and EY for the first time in more than a decade last year.
Equity partner promotions across the Big Four hit a five-year low in 2025. KPMG also boosted profit per partner by promoting almost no one to its equity ranks between 2021 and 2023, contributing to its partnership shrinking to its smallest in more than two decades.
“Over a two-year period, we will have created more than 200 new roles in our partnership,” said KPMG UK, referring to both new salaried and equity partners. It added: “We look forward to more partner promotions during our next financial year … In a dynamic business like ours, all partners are performance managed.”
EY declined to comment. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026.
