Its official: The Big Four are back. Figures published this month showed that strong fee growth at the consulting arms of the top tier accounting firms have pushed them back into the top 10 of UK consultancy.

Three of the four – KPMG, PwC and Ernst & Young – sold their consultancy businesses in the wake of the Enron scandal and the regulatory scrutiny that then turned upon perceived conflicts of interest between the firms’ auditing core and their consulting interests. Only Deloitte held on to its operations.