Recruiters and analysts say foreign firms are trimming ambitions as Vision 2030 shifts from big ideas to budget discipline—and from strategy slides to execution trenches.

RIYADH — For much of the past decade, Saudi Arabia was the consulting industry’s hottest address. Global firms raced to expand in Riyadh to serve a cascade of public‑sector mandates tied to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030. That rush swelled payrolls, salaries and partner ranks. But the cycle is turning: a year‑long moderation in demand and tighter government oversight have pushed foreign consultancies to rein in hiring plans and, in some cases, to cut staff, according to recruiters and analysts.

The change is not a collapse so much as a comedown from extraordinary growth. After years of fast‑tracked awards and broad scopes, ministries and government‑backed entities are phasing projects more cautiously and demanding clearer deliverables. Fee pressure has intensified, with several firms reporting lower rates on government work compared with the highs of 2021–2023, recruiters say. ‘Growth at any cost’ has given way to cost discipline.

The macro backdrop has shifted too. Lower‑than‑expected oil receipts and heavier capital commitments around giga‑projects have widened the projected budget deficit to roughly 5.3% of GDP in 2025, prompting a review of spending priorities, ratings analysts say. That has brought closer scrutiny of external advisory contracts, especially strategy and program‑management engagements that ballooned during the planning phase of the mega‑project push.

Inside the industry, the most visible shock came in September when PwC cut about 1,500 roles and roughly 60 partners across its Middle East operations after strains in key Saudi relationships, according to people familiar with the matter. The reductions, while not solely Saudi‑driven, reverberated across Riyadh’s consulting market—both as a signal of softer pipelines and a warning about over‑capacity built during the boom years.

Even so, this is not 2016 in reverse. Saudi Arabia’s non‑oil economy remains resilient—private‑sector output and new orders accelerated in September, according to purchasing‑managers data—and many projects are moving from ‘design’ to ‘delivery’. That transition changes the mix of work. Strategy decks and operating‑model blueprints are giving way to construction management, supplier mobilization, digital deployment and local capability building. Firms overweight strategy and policy work are feeling the downdraft; those with deep benches in engineering, project controls, digital implementation and procurement still see demand, albeit with stricter service‑level definitions and tougher milestone gates.

Recruiters describe a market in which requisitions are being approved more slowly and headcount additions are tied to specific work orders rather than optimistic pipeline forecasts. Instead of hiring entire cohorts on spec, firms are backfilling selectively in delivery roles—data engineering for smart‑city platforms, PMO and earned value specialists on infrastructure, and cybersecurity implementers for government systems—while deferring generalist strategy hiring. Compensation remains elevated by regional standards but sign‑on bonuses and guaranteed‑bonus packages have become rarer, they say.

The shift is equally visible on the client side. Several ministries have centralized vendor management and introduced tighter frameworks for onboarding consultants, including greater use of framework agreements and competition among pre‑qualified panels. For foreign firms, that has meant longer sales cycles, more detailed data‑security requirements and, in sensitive programs, a preference for mixed teams that pair expatriate specialists with Saudi nationals. Some agencies have also capped travel and accommodation billables that ballooned during the scramble of previous years.

Nowhere is the recalibration more closely watched than at the giga‑projects—NEOM, Diriyah, the Red Sea developments and others—that have defined the Vision 2030 narrative. Project scopes are being sequenced and reprioritized after high‑profile reviews, market participants say. That hasn’t halted work, but it has redistributed budgets and slowed the replacement of expiring advisory mandates. As more packages move into construction and operations, an increasing share of spend is flowing to contractors and integrators rather than strategy advisers.

At the same time, technology is reshaping the mix. Generative AI and automation are beginning to bite into classic consulting workflows—benchmarking, document creation, and scenario modeling—allowing clients to do more in‑house and compress timelines. Firms that invested early in AI‑augmented delivery and proprietary data assets are defending margins better than those selling labor‑intensive slideware. Several recruiters report clients explicitly asking for AI‑enabled delivery approaches in RFPs.

For senior talent, mobility has flipped from one‑way into the Kingdom to two‑way across the Gulf. Dubai and Doha, which saw fewer headline mega‑projects but steadier private‑sector pipelines, are again attractive landing spots for partners and directors whose Riyadh practices were built around state clients. Within Saudi Arabia, the balance of demand is tilting from the capital to the western corridor as tourism‑linked assets progress and as operating companies, rather than central ministries, take control of day‑to‑day delivery.

What happens next hinges on two levers: budget rhythm and execution capacity. If oil receipts stabilize and ministries lock multi‑year frameworks for delivery support, hiring could settle into a more sustainable, skills‑specific cadence. But should fiscal caution deepen, firms may continue to trim back office and rebalance toward mid‑level doers over senior generalists. Either way, the era of blanket expansion looks over. The industry is moving to an implementation market where scale matters less than proof of delivery.

For Saudi policymakers, the recalibration is part of a broader maturation. After years of setting vision, the task is to build institutions that can buy, govern and absorb complex programs at speed. That means a premium on knowledge transfer and the development of Saudi national talent—both to reduce long‑term dependency on foreign advisers and to ensure projects survive leadership and budget cycles.

For foreign consultancies, the message is equally clear: specialize, localize, and show outcomes. The firms best positioned for the next leg are those that pair Saudi partner leadership with domain depth in infrastructure, digital, tourism and industrial value chains; that accept tougher commercial terms; and that prove they can move beyond pilots into live operations. The hiring boom may be ending, but the work of building a diversified Saudi economy has only begun—and it demands a different kind of consulting muscle.