Over the years the investigation of behaviour of piles in groups connected to a cap in consolidating soil has attracted far less attention than the study of isolated piles in groups. In this paper, a series of three-dimensional numerical simulations have been performed to study the behaviour of pile groups connected to a cap in consolidating ground. Both elastic no-slip and elasto-plastic slip analyses were considered. Based on the analysis results, when piles were connected to a cap, tensile forces were developed near the pile head at the outer piles. Elastic solution and no-slip analysis over-predicted the tensile force near the pile head for outer piles. Relatively speaking, the number of piles in a group is more important than the pile spacing in terms of the influence of negative skin friction on the pile behaviour. The issue on the development of tensile forces on the pile head at the outer piles is perhaps needed to be carefully considered in the pile design to prevent the damages of the pile-cap connection.