The best place to work in the Big Four if you want to make partner

Not all jobs at Big Four firms are equally destined for greatness. Some jobs come with an unusually strong chance of making partner. Others come with an unusually high chance of plateauing somewhere further down the hierarchy.

EY, the smallest of the Big Four firms, has promoted its new partners today. A breakdown of their location by division versus the overall distribution of EY staff globally reveals that employees working in strategy and transactions punch above their weight when it comes to partnership promotions; employees working in business support do not.

This is perhaps inevitable given that strategy and transactions staff at EY work on M&A and transactions and "corporate strategy, capital allocation and transaction advisory," all of which sound very important and have been incredibly busy this year, while business support staff (who include IT people) are the EY equivalent of the back and middle office. 

The work horses of the Big Four, though, are the people in assurance jobs, whose roles involve validating clients' reporting. They account for a third of EY staff and a third of this year's partner promotions.

Making partner can be lucrative. Last year, average pay for EY's UK partners was £667k ($925k), which is almost equivalent to the amounts some US banks pay their managing directors. 

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