A comment about junior staff: This is not part of some sinister scheme but indeed the number of juniors is quite pronounced because the low level work involves a lot of small work off someone else's prior work. You dont need any technical knowledge to do it. We are talking about check the signature is there, the number in the excel agrees with the pdf etc. Im sure it can be time consuming but it needs to be done.

Naturally , there are poeple setting the guidance on the work itself i.e. which signature should be found, and where you should document it. But those jobs are very limited.

Thats why their project teams are so tilted towards juniors. Simply put, most of the work available is grunt work. A construction job needs 1 architect, 1 engineer, and many laborers. Its not very different here. There is a mixed bag of talent in those ranks.

There is nothing wrong with staffing projects accordingly. The blame on juniors, when it hapoens, is a escapism which should be easily disarmed by anyone knowing what they are doing.

This hierarchy is true for most audit firms. This may not apply to the consulting arms.

The product sold is not a miracle drug. People understand those with talent are setting the steps to be performed and are the sleuths with the hound nose for fraud. Clients are paying paying for that talent and the experience.