What has your experiences been regarding the cultural differences in consulting jobs in the financial world between Europe and the UK or between Europe and Australia?

There is a job that I can go for in a consulting firm, but I am a bit worried that the hours will be too much to have a balanced family life - after all the reason why I had kids is to spend some time with them. I don't mind a solid job that stretches you a bit, but I don't like working on weekends unless it is absolutely necessary.

The rumours I have heard was that the hours are less demanding than in the UK or Australia, but still more demanding than the corporate side of things.

???

In my experience (2 of the former big-5 firms and one of the big-3 strategy firms, total around 10 years of consulting), the hours in continental Europe are much worse than either UK or US or Australia. At McK/Bain/BCG you can expect to work something like 55-65 hours a week in London, but more like 80-90 in most of continental Europe. Germany, Spain, and Italy are typically the worst countries, CH is a close follower. NL and Scandinavia are better.

In case your offer is with a small firm it's of course difficult to say - there it will be more driven by firm culture than anything else.