--- - |2 Following the 2007/2008 global financial crisis, the UK public sector has experienced major funding cuts resulting in staffing reductions and a dilution in the employment deal. Consequently, the aim of this study is to understand how i‐deals, which are unique conditions of employment negotiated between an individual and their employer (Rousseau, 2005), may be used to accept a new psychological contract and foster employee engagement during austerity. Four qualitative team case studies were conducted comprising senior, middle‐line, and first‐line managers, and either professional or nonprofessional employees, within one English local authority (LA). Methods included 29 × one‐to‐one and three focus group semistructured interviews incorporating the critical incident technique. By examining i‐deals through the lens of social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), this research demonstrates the role of reciprocity in the form of i‐deals to accept the new psychological contract and foster engagement. Here, for some employees, once concrete and universal resources were available to a certain level (e.g., pay), the difference (e.g., universal resources such as a pay rise, external training) was substituted by more particularistic resources (e.g., flexibility and developmental i‐deals) herewith extending Foa and Foa's (1976, 1980, and 2012) resource theory. Furthermore, resultant economic or social exchange may be due to the individual attribution of why the i‐deal was agreed, rather than the i‐deal content. Finally, when i‐deals are denied, action to lower the risk of psychological contract breach is advised. - Human Resource Development Quarterly, EarlyView.