EY Compensation Update FY27

EY employees have begun sharing their FY27 compensation results, and the early picture is decidedly mixed.

In the annual compensation thread on Reddit’s r/Big4 community, employees are posting their location, service line, level, performance rating, salary adjustment, bonus and—perhaps most importantly—their reaction to the numbers.

While some employees reported double-digit salary increases, particularly around promotions or strong performance ratings, others received increases in the low single digits with little or no bonus. The sharp differences appear to be contributing to frustration among employees who already feel stretched by long hours and a difficult promotion environment.

Promotions Are Still Producing the Largest Raises

Not surprisingly, employees moving into a new rank generally reported the strongest salary increases.

One Northeast audit employee moving from Staff 2 to Senior 1 reported an increase from approximately $96,800 to $108,800, or about 12.4%, along with a performance bonus of roughly $3,700 and a banked promotion bonus. Another Northeast audit employee making the same promotion reported moving from $96,000 to $108,800, along with a $5,000 promotion bonus and approximately $3,600 performance bonus. Both had received EY’s “Strategic Impact” performance rating.

Dallas showed a somewhat different result. An assurance employee moving from A2 to Senior 1 reported a salary increase from $88,500 to $97,780, roughly 10.5%, while receiving a $2,860 performance bonus and banking the promotion bonus. Despite the raise, the employee described the outcome as disappointing and indicated that the weak job market was one reason to remain at EY.

Manager promotions also produced meaningful increases, although expectations appear to have been considerably higher.

A high-cost-of-living FSO tax employee moving from Senior 3 to Manager 1 reported compensation increasing from $120,600 to $139,400, plus a 5% performance bonus. The employee broke the adjustment into an approximately 8.1% market increase and 7.5% promotion increase, but still expressed disappointment, saying the market adjustment was the weakest of their EY career.

That result illustrates an important theme running through the thread: employees are not necessarily evaluating FY27 compensation against zero. They’re comparing it with prior EY compensation cycles, outside-market salaries and the amount of responsibility they have taken on.

Strong Ratings Can Still Produce Strong Raises

Promotion was not the only path to a large increase.

A Senior 2 moving to Senior 3 in Washington, D.C.-area audit reported a Strategic Impact rating and a salary increase from $108,000 to $121,800—approximately 12.8%—plus an $8,032 bonus, equal to about 7.4% of the employee’s prior salary.

That employee was among the relatively few clearly positive voices in the early thread and said the base salary increase was enough to make the overall compensation result satisfactory.

Meanwhile, an FSO audit Senior 1 moving to Senior 2 in a high-cost market, rated Differentiating, reported an increase from $107,000 to $113,000, approximately 5.6%, and a $6,232 bonus.

The contrast suggests that rating, geography, service line and an individual’s position within EY’s salary bands may all have substantial effects on the final adjustment.

The Bigger Problem Appears to Be at Manager and Senior Manager

Some of the most negative reactions came from employees who were not being promoted.

One manager in a medium-cost-of-living assurance market reported moving from approximately $134,000 to $136,700, only around a 2% increase, with no bonus. The employee’s reaction was essentially resignation rather than enthusiasm.

A high-cost-of-living tax Senior Manager reported an increase from $220,000 to $228,000, approximately 3.6%, with a 2% bonus. The employee summarized the outcome in one word: “Yikes.”

Another tax Senior Manager in a very-high-cost market reported only a 3% salary increase and no bonus after more than a decade with the firm and said the result had pushed them toward looking for another job.

Those examples are particularly noteworthy because compensation expectations tend to change as employees move farther up the Big Four hierarchy. Senior Managers often manage substantial client relationships, oversee multiple engagements, develop staff and participate in business development. A 2%–4% adjustment can therefore feel more like a cost-of-living adjustment than recognition of increased responsibility.

Some “Progressing” Employees Were Hit Hard

Performance ratings also appear to matter significantly.

A Midwest Tax GCR Senior 1 moving to Senior 2 with a Progressing rating reported salary increasing from $89,508 to $95,000, approximately 6.1%, but received no bonus.

The employee said the salary increase itself was acceptable, but the lack of a bonus after working substantial late nights was enough to make them consider leaving EY.

An even more dramatic example came from Southeast FSO assurance, where an employee with a Progressing rating reported moving from $83,000 to $84,245—an increase of only 1.5%.

That type of adjustment may help explain why compensation discussions frequently become discussions about retention. Employees aren’t evaluating salary increases in isolation; they’re weighing them against workload, utilization expectations, busy-season hours and alternative career options.

Strategic Impact Bonuses Still Disappointed Some Employees

One interesting theme was that even employees receiving EY’s stronger performance ratings weren’t universally happy.

A Northeast employee receiving Strategic Impact and being promoted into Senior received approximately a 12.4% salary increase but expressed disappointment with a performance bonus of roughly 3.8%.

Another commenter responded that staff-level employees historically have not received especially large performance bonuses, suggesting that the payout may not have been unusual by EY standards.

That distinction is important.

Employees may hear “Strategic Impact” and expect compensation dramatically above peers, while the firm’s actual compensation framework may provide much of the differentiation through salary positioning, promotion increases or relatively modest differences in bonus percentages.

Early FY27 Compensation Examples

The early reports provide a useful illustration of just how wide the range can be:

These numbers should not be interpreted as EY-wide salary bands. Reddit compensation threads are self-reported, employees use inconsistent terminology, and geographic cost-of-living classifications aren’t standardized. But taken together, they provide useful directional information about how employees are experiencing the FY27 compensation cycle.

The Most Important Story May Be Retention

The most striking feature of the thread isn’t necessarily the salary numbers.

It’s what employees say immediately after posting them.

Several posters who received modest increases openly discussed leaving EY. Others indicated they were remaining primarily because the external job market was difficult rather than because they were satisfied with compensation. Meanwhile, employees receiving double-digit increases were substantially more positive about remaining through the next promotion cycle.

That matters for a professional-services firm.

Big Four firms rely heavily on employees remaining long enough to move from staff to senior, senior to manager and manager to senior manager. Losing experienced employees means losing institutional knowledge and forces firms either to promote employees more quickly, recruit experienced hires or shift more work to lower-cost delivery centers.

Compensation therefore isn’t simply an employee-relations issue. It is part of EY’s broader staffing model.

What the FY27 Thread Suggests So Far

The early FY27 numbers point toward a compensation system with increasingly divergent outcomes.

Employees receiving promotions or top ratings can still see increases exceeding 10%. Employees progressing normally without promotion appear much more likely to receive mid-single-digit increases, while some Managers and Senior Managers are reporting adjustments of only 2%–4%.

Bonuses also appear relatively restrained in several of the examples.

The result is a compensation cycle in which two EY employees can both have successful years but walk away with dramatically different perceptions of whether the firm rewarded them.

For employees considering whether to remain in Big Four accounting, that perception may ultimately matter as much as the percentage printed on the compensation statement.

And based on the early FY27 discussion, EY may have a retention problem brewing among exactly the experienced professionals it can least afford to lose.

Source: Self-reported compensation information from the r/Big4 “Official EY FY27 Compensation Thread.” Figures are anecdotal and should not be considered representative of EY’s entire workforce.