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PwC wants to hire more tech talent. There’s just one problem — it can’t find them.

“Across the PwC network, we are looking for hundreds and hundreds of engineers. We just cannot find them,” Mohamed Kande, global chairman of PwC, told the BBC in an interview.

Traditionally, professional services firms have prioritized generalist, critical thinkers, and strong communicators. Now, technologists are in high demand, and top firms have been racing to bolster their ranks with tech talent through a mix of hiring and upskilling.

Accenture’s latest annual report shows it added nearly 40,000 AI and data professionals in the last two years. They now account for roughly 10% of its global head count. EY has made an even bigger push, adding 61,000 technologists since 2023.

The new demand for tech capabilities is tied to the changing nature of the work that top consulting firms offer their clients.

McKinsey recently told Business Insider that delivering straight strategy advice — the type of work typically associated with consultants — now only accounts for around 20% of the company’s work. Instead, McKinsey is offering more “deep implementation expertise” and multi-year transformation projects.

Kande told the BBC that advising clients on how to implement AI will be at the heart of PwC’s future business strategy.

PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Kande said he didn’t know if PwC would continue hiring graduates at the same rate. “It will be a different set of people. But we are going to make sure we have the right skillset for the right jobs,” he told the BBC.

In August, Business Insider obtained part of an internal presentation showing that PwC US planned to cut graduate hiring by a third over the next three years.

A bullet point on the presentation slide said leadership’s decision to slow down associate-level hiring related to “transformation efforts, the impact of AI, and further AC integration” — with AC integration referring to PwC’s acceleration centers, its name for its offshoring hubs.

The firm told Business Insider at the time that the “rapid pace of technological change” was reshaping its operations, and that it was being “prudent” in response to “historically low levels of attrition.”

PwC UK has also reduced its entry-level recruitment in the UK this year, lowering the intake by 200 compared to last year. Marco Amitrano, the UK head, credited the decline in junior hiring to the impact of AI and a sluggish economy.

In 2021, then under the leadership of Bob Mortiz, PwC announced a plan to recruit 100,000 people by the middle of 2026. The firm is roughly 40,000 employees away from hitting that target, according to its latest head count released in October.

“The world looked very different” when those plans were made, Kande told the BBC, adding that meeting the goal was no longer possible

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