Not misleading, I know of several ex Lt Cols/Wg Cdrs/Cdrs and the rank below working for the "big 4" in the City (PWC, E&Y, Deloitte and KPMG) with MBAs and good business school degrees. Starting salary as an associate ia normally about £80-100k with a £20-30k bonus. Its a cut throat world to get to Partner but then you could be on £500-800k plus a %ge of the deals that you land.
Its megabucks in this world - look at where some of the corporate people came from in the Defence Reform Unit, Key Systems Advisers and some of the NITEWORKS projects; some are paid for their services at a DAILY rate of £1500-£2000!!! Kind of puts the supposed "mega bucks" in the airlines in the shade, doesn't it?
That said, selection into the big four takes 6-12 months of various interviews. They are looking for ex Service people with the right skills and most importantly connections into MoD and OGDs. That is why SO2+ ranks are only lilely to succeed due to the need to have working relationships at SO1 to at least 2 star level.
If you don't go to the big four then others like Dettica, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, Serco Defence, etc... are always looking for good people as well. Their salaries are typically 20% lower but with a bonus you could well be in 6 figures.
So I standby my original statememt.