The Big Four just published their AI gold rush earnings — and it's consultants, not engineers, getting rich.
The Summary
- Deloitte UK partners averaged £1.13 million ($1.5 million) in 2025, up 7% year-over-year, driven primarily by AI consulting demand
- The Big Four accounting firms are capturing enterprise AI budgets before tech companies can
- Follow the money: when partners at consulting firms get 7% raises, that means Fortune 500s are spending serious cash on something they don't know how to build themselves
The Signal
Deloitte UK just told us something important about where we are in the AI adoption curve. Partner pay jumped 7% to $1.5 million on the back of AI consulting revenue, which means enterprises are spending heavily not on AI itself, but on people who will tell them what AI to buy and how to use it. This is the consulting phase, not the implementation phase.
The Big Four have seen this movie before. They made fortunes on Y2K remediation, ERP implementations, cloud migrations, and digital transformation. Each wave followed the same pattern: new technology arrives, enterprises panic, consultants bill hourly to produce PowerPoint strategy decks, then eventually the technology gets commoditized enough that companies just buy it and use it.
"When Big Four partners are getting 7% raises from AI consulting, you're watching enterprises pay the fear premium."
What makes this AI wave different is the speed and the stakes. Companies aren't just worried about efficiency gains or competitive advantage. They're worried about obsolescence. That fear is worth $1,500 per hour for a partner who can walk them through AI governance frameworks and use case prioritization matrices. The typical Deloitte AI engagement: six months, $2-5 million, deliverable is a roadmap and a pilot that may or may not scale.
Here's what the partner pay number reveals:
- Enterprise AI budgets are real and large, not vaporware or pilot-only spending
- Most of that money is going to strategy and planning, not production deployments
- The consulting arbitrage window is wide open — companies will pay premium rates because they're genuinely lost
The Implication
If you're building in the agent space, this is your roadmap. The companies paying Deloitte $1.5 million for AI strategy are your future customers, but they're not ready for you yet. They're still in the "what is this and how scared should we be" phase. Build for six months from now when the consulting decks are done and procurement wants to actually buy something.
For everyone else, watch what happens when these consulting revenues plateau. That's when AI stops being scary and starts being boring infrastructure. That's when it gets interesting.