January 23, 2025

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Deloitte Plans to Cut More Jobs From Its UK Consulting Division

Deloitte Plans to Cut More Jobs From Its UK Consulting Division

  • Deloitte is planning to cut more roles from its advisory division.
  • The “ongoing challenging market” is forcing the firm to restructure, a spokesperson said.
  • The growth rate of its global consulting revenues has fallen from 19% in 2023 to 1.9% in 2024.

Deloitte plans to cut more staff from its advisory division as demand for consultancy services declines.

The Big Four firm informed staff on Tuesday that parts of its UK business would be undergoing a restructuring process that would “put some roles at risk of redundancy,” Deloitte told Business Insider.

A Deloitte spokesperson said the job cuts were still subject to consultation. Under UK law, all companies making more than 100 redundancies must carry out a consultation for at least 45 days before dismissing employees.

An internal message to staff seen by BI said the cuts would impact less than 1% of Deloitte’s 27,000-strong UK workforce and would affect staff from the strategy, risk and transactions, and technology and transformation divisions.

The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the decision, reported that the company was planning to cut 180 roles.

Deloitte’s restructuring is the latest in more than a year of redundancies and firings as it tries to balance costs and workforce numbers against slowing demand for consulting services.

In its internal messages, Deloitte said the planned cuts were “necessary to enable us to navigate the remainder of a challenging FY25.”

“Clients continue to be more cautious in their spending and are taking longer to commit to new engagements,” it said.

This fall, the firm fired about 250 employees from advisory services in the UK whom it deemed to be underperforming. A person with knowledge of the matter told BI in October that about 1% of the UK workforce had left the company as part of internal “performance management processes.”

Deloitte also carried out 100 redundancies in February 2024 and 800 redundancies in September 2023.

“In the context of an ongoing challenging market, we have to carefully consider the shape of our firm,” Deloitte told BI on Wednesday.

The upheaval has come as the major consulting firms struggle to adjust to slowing demand after a surge in growth during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to its latest annual report, Deloitte’s global consulting revenues grew by 1.9% in the 2024 financial year ending 31 May. Over the same period in 2023, consulting revenues grew by 19.1%.

The slowdown has also affected partner payouts at the firm, which fell by 4.5% to about $1.27 million. Equity partners took home roughly $63,000 less than they did a year ago.

Deloitte’s global workforce expanded to 460,000 in the 2024 financial year, an increase of 3,000. Tens of thousands of new hires were made in the previous two years.

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