Deloitte most popular Big Four employer in the Netherlands

Deloitte can once pride itself on being named the most popular Big Four employer in the Netherlands.

The professional services giant netted the top slot for the second year in a row in the latest accountancy and consultancy ranking from Universum, ahead of counterpart EY, which retained its second place from last year. With a turnover of €968 million, Deloitte is the largest Big Four firm in the country, a position it also holds worldwide.

More than 29,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 55 universities were asked to identify favourite employers – companies that they believe offer the best opportunities for kickstarting their careers. The Netherlands has approximately 292,000 students enrolled in higher education, suggesting that the students surveyed are quite representative of the overall population.

The Big Four are the four largest accounting and consulting firms in the world, and together they generated massive revenues of $154 billion in their latest financial year. They operate in virtually every country in the world, and there is hardly anyone in the professional services industry that isn’t aware of the Big Four brands.

The smallest of the quartet in the Netherlands, KPMG, ranks third in terms of popularity, while the second largest player domestically, PwC, holds fourth spot. Notably, in the eyes of students, all four are more attractive employers than well-known brands such as Volvo, FrieslandCampina, Hema PepsiCo, Jumbo and the Dutch central bank.

Across all sectors, KLM has been voted the top employer by business students, rather remarkable given the company is on the brink of collapse as a result of the covid-19-induced crisis. Beer brewer Heineken and American tech company Apple complete the top three, with Nike and Google hot on their heels.

An overview of the 30 most popular employers according to business students:
KLM
Heineken
Apple
Nike
Google
Tesla
Unilever
Rijksoverheid
Rabobank
Coca-Cola European Partners
Coolblue
BMW Group
Bol.com
Schiphol Group
L'Oréal Group
Adidas
Deloitte
TUI
IKEA
ING
Shell
Philips
ABN Amro
Booking.com
EY
Microsoft
KPMG
Albert Heijn
Belastingdienst
PwC