McKinsey wants ambitious technologists, not just MBAs

• McKinsey QuantumBlack leader Ben Ellencweig said the firm is embracing a more technical talent pool.
• “Our recruiting changed dramatically in the last few years,” Ellencweig told BI.
• McKinsey isn’t the only firm shifting its talent base. EY has also expanded from accountants.

Once famous for its ties to business schools, McKinsey is casting a wider net to meet its needs.

For decades, an MBA was one of the clearest routes into elite consulting. As AI changes the work firms do for clients, the consulting industry is looking for people who can build technology as well as devise the corporate strategy around it.

“Our recruiting changed dramatically in the last few years. We recruit from places we haven’t recruited before,” Ben Ellencweig, who leads McKinsey’s AI arm, QuantumBlack, told Business Insider. “Today many, many of our colleagues are coming from non-MBA backgrounds, and then technology too is kind of the next wave.”

That includes mathematicians, computer-science PhDs, startup founders without degrees, and people with experience at technology companies.

The shift is playing out beyond McKinsey. Job postings from Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG, McKinsey, BCG, and Bain fell by about 24% in the year ending May 2026 compared to the year before, according to labor-market intelligence firm Draup. At the same time, AI jobs grew from 1.4% to 5% of their total openings.

The number of forward-deployed-engineer openings across the seven firms rose from none to 1,404 in that same period, according to the analysis. Such roles require engineers who can deploy and run production AI systems inside organizations, and also do the client-facing work traditionally associated with consulting.

According to McKinsey’s current job postings, most of those roles require at least four or five years of computer-related engineering experience.

Ellencweig said McKinsey is looking to fill these roles with “curious people” who are excited to work with clients and solve problems through technology, but who also bring deep technical skills. The firm is recruiting from different geographies, schools, and “outside-of-school, non-school backgrounds,” he said.

In an email to Business Insider, the firm added that it is recruiting through “less traditional pathways,” such as coding programs and bootcamps.

QuantumBlack itself has grown from 47 data scientists working with a Formula 1 team to “well above 5,000” AI professionals over the past decade, Ellencweig said. Those workers include data scientists, data engineers, designers, product managers, and product owners.

McKinsey rival EY has recently spoken about its own push to widen its talent pool. Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas’ chief talent and culture officer, told BI earlier this year that the Big Four firm was once exclusively made up of accountants, but now it also hires engineers, creatives, and technologists.

Ellencweig said McKinsey is reinventing itself around technology, including how it hires and how it develops current employees.

“I view our entire workforce, the entire McKinsey, including our consultant cohort, becoming very technology savvy,” McKinsey’s Ellencweig said.