‘Big four’ firm Deloitte will hire 3,500 new consultants in a bid to meet growing demand for its consulting services.
The hiring spree will form part of its plan to grow its UK consulting practice by 40% by 2027, increasing headcount to around 11,000. This is in addition to 1,200 roles created during the 2022 financial year, it said.
The company plans to invest £220 million in digital transformation, technology and advisory skills over the next five years and currently has around 725 open vacancies for roles such as digital architects, machine learning engineers and data scientists.
Around a third of the growth in headcount is expected to come from outside London, Deloitte said, with around 1,000 new roles in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the north of England.
There are already plans to open a new office in Salford in 2023 after the north-west consulting practice doubled in size.
Early careers roles will also play a key part in the firm’s growth. In the next financial year, Deloitte will recruit more than 700 graduate and apprentice roles, a year-on-year increase of 50%.
Deloitte
Deloitte extends flexible working to public holidays
Last year the company recruited around 500 graduates and apprentices, as well as 1,800 experienced hires. It also added 40 new partners through hires and promotions.
Forty-one per cent of experienced hires were women, up from 35% the previous year. Almost half of the new experienced hires (47%) were from an ethnic minority background, up from 28% in the 2021 financial year.
Anne-Marie Malley, UK managing partner for consulting at Deloitte, said: “Whether it’s adopting new technology, implementing sustainability initiatives or undergoing large-scale digital transformation projects, our people help businesses and leaders up and down the UK deliver the best possible outcomes for their organisations.
“We are responding to client demand by growing our headcount rapidly over the next few years, starting with a record graduate and apprentice intake this year.” She added that the increased headcount could also come from acquisitions.
“We are committed to creating thousands of new jobs in the UK to support our clients across a raft of industries and subsectors, with at least a third of new hires coming from outside of London. We will continue to identify and invest in the UK’s best and brightest talent to solve our clients’ biggest challenges,” she added.
Payal Vasudeva, partner and consulting people and purpose leader at Deloitte, added: “Our aim is to lead a transformative impact for our society and our clients through our people. And we know we are at our best when we foster an inclusive culture and embrace diversity in all forms.
“Whether it’s our award-winning BrightStarts Apprenticeship programme, our Black Action Plan, or schemes such as Code First Girls, we are continually introducing new, progressive initiatives that are designed to move the dial across a number of diversity areas. It is thanks to this effort that we are seeing progress in the diversity of the early careers and experienced hires coming into consulting, although there is still more to be done.”
Malley said the firm’s hybrid working model would help to “attract and retain the best and brightest talent”. The Deloitte Works model allows people to decide when, where and how to deliver their client work. It also announced it would allow staff to choose when to take public holidays early this year.
She added: “Conversations with our human capital consultancy team resulted in a number of innovative measures that we have introduced in the last year across the firm.
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“This includes our differentiated hybrid working model and our policy around flexible public holidays, which have created a more inclusive working environment that is proving to be very popular with our people and new joiners.”
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