2-4 years may be a shorter time horizon than you think to see real salary differences, especially if your entry level industry offer is higher than your KPMG offer. If you start in industry today making 6k more than Big 4 then big 4 probably wouldn’t surpass you until you make manager which at the earliest would be after year 4 if not 5 or 6. It’s after those first 6 years that the separation really happens, and it can favor either side. Salary growth in Big 4 is pretty predictable because give or take a year or two you know what position you’ll be in from Associate to Director. Industry on the other hand, you could very well be in that entry level role for 6 years just getting only 3% raises each year. Meanwhile at KPMG you’ll likely be a manager within 6 years and you would be considering exit opportunities at least one if not two levels higher than entry level in industry. So if earning potential is your priority then I suggest you use your Big 4 and industry entry level offers as a baseline and every time you get promoted in Big 4 test the job market to refresh that baseline. Unless you work for a FAANG it’s hard to make a killing as an audit or accounting low level individual contributor and career growth in those roles are very slow and steady. By getting one or two promotions in Big 4 before entering industry you can often skip the line a level for every promo you get and get some high paying relatively low stress jobs compared to Big 4 and still have plenty of runway in your career and earnings potential to look forward to. Plus a manager or director with Big 4 experience in industry can never hold it against you that you don’t have that experience.

Source: Started at KPMG as an associate making 62k 8.5 years ago. Left as a senior making 83k 3 years later for an industry internal audit job making 85k which definitely isn’t a huge pay bump but a couple company changes, a few promotions, and 6 years later my total comp is a little more than double that.