Consulting firms may be less outspoken than tech CEOs, but they’re staring down the same staffing problem as Silicon Valley after President Donald Trump introduced a $100,000 H-1B application fee last Friday.
The H-1B program temporarily allows employers to hire foreign skilled workers for specialized jobs.
The Department of Labor reports that nearly 50% of H-1B applications are related to “professional, scientific, and technical services” — with professional services typically referring to the consulting and accounting work carried out by firms like Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC.
James Ransome, a partner and strategy consulting lead at Patrick Morgan — a firm focused on executive recruitment and industry analysis — said that Friday’s executive order had raised concern over talent acquisition among consulting leaders.
“For many firms, the H-1B route has been a steady pipeline for mid-level consultants with strong technical and analytical skills, roles that are difficult to fill at scale in the US domestic market. Leaders are concerned this change adds further friction at a time when competition for talent is already high,” said Ransome.
According to the US government’s H-1B employer data hub, Deloitte, EY, and Accenture are the professional services firms that hire the most employees with H-1B visas.
In the last three years up to April 2025, Deloitte hired 7,535 workers on H-1B visas, making it the eleventh largest US employer of H-1B visa holders. The number represents roughly 1% of its most recently reported US head count.
At Accenture and EY, H-1B visa holders hired in the last three years — 5,862 and 5,298, respectively — represent almost 10% of each firm’s last reported US headcounts of around 60,000. The data does not reflect how many remain employed by the firms.
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Deloitte, EY, and Accenture did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
Ransome said he expected the Big Four and top-tier firms to absorb some of the higher costs of the visas to maintain staffing continuity. But they would likely take a “dual approach” and shift their staffing models alongside any cost absorption, he said.
Smaller players in the consulting industry will need to up their ability to attract domestic talent, especially mid-level hires, he added.
Competition over tech talent has become a defining pressure point for consulting firms as they race to develop the strongest AI offering for clients, and the H-1B executive order will add to that pressure.
Consulting firms competing for data scientists and other highly technical specialists will feel the competition increase, Tom Rodenhauser, a consulting analyst and the managing partner at Kennedy Intelligence, told Business Insider.
Accelerating offshoring
The two experts told BI that Trump’s executive order is also likely to make offshoring hubs more attractive to firms.
“Consulting is mobile in the sense that individuals don’t need to be based in the US to serve customers,” said Rodenhauser. Firms can simply relocate resources to bypass the disruption caused by the visa situation, he said.
For years, top firms have used labor arbitrage to bolster their revenue streams, setting up nearshore and offshore centers in countries like India, Mexico, Argentina, and the Philippines.
The reliance on foreign hubs has increased as technical capabilities within offshore centers have improved, and AI has reduced the demand for junior workers in US offices.
In August, BI obtained part of an internal presentation showing that PwC US planned to cut graduate hiring by a third over the next three years. One of the three reasons the firm gave in the presentation was “further AC integration,” referring to PwC’s acceleration centers, its name for its offshore hubs.
Ransome said consultancies have already been reassessing the balance between onshore client-facing teams and offshore delivery hubs, and the potential changes around H-1B visas would accelerate those strategies.
“Rather than simply paying more across the board, they’ll use this moment to rethink leverage models: higher-value, client-facing work anchored onshore, with more delivery capability shifted offshore.”
Nearshore hubs, like those in Canada, would start looking more attractive. Toronto, given its proximity to New York and Chicago, would be particularly appealing, Ransome said.
For midsize firms, without the infrastructure or scale to rely on foreign hubs, the H-1B price hike will be more disruptive, he said.
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