On the Strategy Group programme you’ll join a dynamic and fast-growing business area where, along with the support of your team, you’ll work through complex and challenging issues facing our clients today. You’ll have the opportunity to work with people at all levels including senior management, offering strategic advice on business and operating models to our corporate, public sector and private equity clients. We offer advice in both an organic growth and transaction-related setting. It is an exciting time to join this team as we drive momentum and enhance our presence in our priority sectors. Your career aspirations and initiative can help make a meaningful and positive difference for the businesses and communities we serve.
The Strategy Group Graduate Programme is designed to give you a broad and varied experience from both a sector and proposition perspective, and develop your consulting skills to help you to accelerate your career. You will build your commercial understanding and business acumen to deliver real value to our clients straight away.
You could gain exposure and experience across:
- Deal Execution - From helping to plan and implement strategic change to measurably increasing portfolio value, our Deal Execution team focuses on delivering tangible results.
- Centres of Excellence - Our CoEs offer deep functional specialist knowledge across all sectors, in both the deal and non-deal environment. They go to market both as part of a team with Deal Execution and Strategy & Performance Transformation, or directly to clients.
- Climate Risk & Strategy - We help our clients to identify and quantify climate-related risks and opportunities to ensure that they balance their environmental responsibilities with economic success to deliver effectively for all stakeholders.
- Strategy & Performance Transformation - We support organisations and executive teams in defining their ambition and developing innovative strategies that embed the agility, customer- centricity and operational excellence needed to thrive in dynamic markets.
You’ll be helping to support clients and businesses across the globe, right from the start. You’ll enjoy exposure to a wide variety of client and internal work such as business development, thought leadership and proposition development. The type of projects you could work on include developing a new operating model across Europe for a major consumer goods producer, or undertaking market analysis across a multitude of sectors to help clients identify growth opportunities.
You will need the adaptability and flexibility to work in different roles with a diverse range of people, often under challenging deadlines, to help our clients solve their most complex strategic issues. Whichever sector you’re working in or project you support, you’ll work closely with people across KPMG’s global network of firms. As part of our diverse KPMG community, you’ll have the chance to feed your curiosity and work with some of the brightest minds who’ll support you grow and build your career.
Our firm’s hybrid working model balances the flexibility of working from home with the importance of collaborating and learning in offices or at client sites. We trust our people to be where our clients need them to be, with our client-facing colleagues working together in person as often as needed. You’ll be empowered by the technology that supports us to work flexibly and our collaborative offices spaces, building friendships and shared experiences, innovating and learning together.
Programme summary
Programme overview
Capability: Deal Advisory
Programme length: 3 years
Qualifications: CIMA
What we look for
At KPMG, everyone brings a unique perspective, and we want to ensure that you have the best opportunity to demonstrate your potential. We want to discover your individual strengths and attributes to help us to know whether you’ll enjoy working here and how you’ll thrive. That’s why we operate an open access policy and an application process that will assess both your qualifications and your qualities.
Generally, you’ll be expected to demonstrate the following grades (*or equivalents), to show that you’re able to successfully study for professional qualifications. If you are a few grades or points short, we would still encourage you to apply, as your application will be reviewed together with your performance in our assessments. You‘ll also have the opportunity to provide additional information for us to assess your application and potential in the context of your socio-economic background and/or any extenuating circumstances, which may have a positive uplift on your academic achievements through contextual recruitment. You can find out more here.
- GCSE Maths Grade 5 or B*
- GCSE English Language Grade 5 or B*
- 120 UCAS points* from your ‘top’ 3 A Level grades, excluding General Studies
- 2:1 undergraduate degree in any discipline.
Key skills
Throughout the recruitment process we will be looking to learn more about your strengths.
To be successful on this programme, you will be required to demonstrate the strengths that we look for in our graduates at KPMG.
Learn more about what we look for and how to apply here.
Training and development
The training and development of our people is critical to the future success of our business. We want to empower you to grow in your own way, to feed your curiosity and embrace a growth mindset in an environment where learning is continuous. Therefore, we have created a rich curriculum and learning community to help you build your skills and fulfil your potential. This ranges from an immersive 5-day induction experience to help you transition to the world of work, formal training courses, leadership knowledge bites, learning journals, online courses and networking events – all aligned to our ‘learn for a lifetime’ strategy designed to help you gain an advantage for life.
In addition, in Deal Advisory - The Strategy Group, we currently offer the CIMA qualification through an apprenticeship route, with the potential for future development via other relevant certifications and/or accreditations. The CIMA qualification uses innovative technology and is delivered via a blend of Online Classroom Live and recorded courses, in addition to in-centre classroom courses. It also has wrap-around support which consists of dedicated professional coaches, online portal content and live and recorded additional study sessions, which means there is a form of support for your every need.
This blended approach enables you to study and learn the content at a pace suited to your learning style, but ensures all are at the right technical level prior to stepping into revision elements, so you can focus on your exam technique before the exam. The structure of the programme is delivered via an apprenticeship route which really enables you to learn on the job and apply your knowledge to the workplace. It equally means that your learning and examinations are spread over the lifetime of the training contract, so that you are able to build up your technical knowledge, and can gradually apply what you are learning in training to your workplace experience.
Additional important information
Please visit our Applying to KPMG page to discover more about our application process.
Visit our International Students page to find out more about visas and requirements.
For anything else, please refer to our FAQ section.
Case study
Rani
Rani initially gained an insight into KPMG through our undergraduate programmes when she was an Economics student at the University of Birmingham and found she enjoyed the culture of the firm.
“In the first year of my degree, I attended the KPMG Insight Programme. I especially liked how people-centred the firm is. It was through that programme that I was offered an internship which I also really enjoyed. That led me onto the graduate scheme.
I like having different tasks and trying things that are completely new to me. I’m working in Transaction Services, which is focused on the early stages of a deal. A typical example of our work is when a client asks us to help them sell their company, we’ll look into the accounts, do due diligence and produce a report to give to the buyers.
Our partners often ask you to research a company. That involves searching across everything from news to relevant mergers – to then share back with them. I find it really interesting. It’s great to have that kind of responsibility and partners are genuinely interested in what you think.