Hello, I'm new to this site but I did some digging around in the archives and could not find an answer to these questions, so I hope some of you might help.

I'm looking to go into consulting early in 2019 (off-cycle hire/not from BA) and am wondering what the current hiring market is like in Germany right now. I've read a few comments and other online articles that several firms were hiring a lot this year, but could anyone give any insight into if this is correct/why they're hiring more people than usual? Or just elaborate on the subject in general? Will that trend continue into 2019?

Also, does anyone have any experiences (interviewing or otherwise) with different MBB offices in different cities in Germany? I'm German but have no connections in consulting so I am getting started with networking now. I'm young and single and my family lives in the UK so I'm open to different cities. I'm wondering for example the differences in office culture between Berlin/ München/Düsseldorf/Hamburg/Köln/usw. as I know often the city impacts office culture more than the firm itself. I'll be doing my best to network with people from different offices, but wanted to ask here in case I could get a feel for which cities I should focus more on. I know this is especially important since some (all?) of the MBBs do their interviewing in two main offices (I think I read Düsseldorf and München for BCG?) so I won't really get a chance to get a feel for different offices.

Thanks in advance and good luck to other applicants.

(edited)