I'm thinking of leaving my current consulting firm to join Accenture in their UK public sector practice and have a couple of questions:- Are they as fiercely corporate as I've heard?- Is the work/life balance 95% weighted towards worK?

No, the work-life balance is 8 hectolitres weighted towards work.

They are very 'corporate america' but your worklife balance will depend on client/manager/project/....I've been at Acn nearly 2 1/2 years and average 9-6 or 6.30 working hours. I have colleagues who do significantly more but there is a face time culture I'm sure some of them buy into. Acn will take as much as you're willing to give.

what the hell is face time culture!!

I think face time culture is about being seen to be on the client site. This could mean one of two things: either the client doesn't trust you to accurately bill hours worked unless they can see you onsite, or that managers want acn folks to be seen on the client site to raise their profile and hopefully generate sell-on opportunities.The former is more to do with the clients' culture than acns.Anyway, back to the question of how "Corporate" they are, they have a Company song for goodness sake!I worked at acn for just over 2 years before they finally broke me. This was largely due to working for Senior Managers and Directors who had no life outside of work, and couldn't understand anyone who didn't want to spend every waking hour in the office. I've since moved on to greener (dot) pastures.

By face time culture i meant people staying late because they think going home at a reasonable hour means they will be perceived as not pulling their weight. I'd rather do a decent days work and go home at a decent time than be fannying about on facebook until 7 or 8 to impress my manager

facebook? don't you mean top-consultant?