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Deloitte is set to axe 100 more jobs in the UK as a prolonged slowdown in deals activity hits demand for some of its services.
The Big Four firm is planning to restructure its corporate finance advisory business, according to a person familiar with the matter, putting about 100 employees from all grades — including some partners and graduate staff — at risk of redundancy. The cuts would be equivalent to 5 per cent of the firm’s financial advisory division.
It comes on top of the 800 redundancies Deloitte announced in September — later reduced to about 700 — as professional services firms contend with slowing demand from clients and rising costs amid a tougher economic environment.
Demand for deals advisory work has been particularly subdued across the Big Four — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — with a combination of higher interest rates and geopolitical tensions resulting in a global slowdown in mergers and acquisitions activity.
Deloitte said: “We are considering restructuring parts of our advisory corporate finance business. This is in order to concentrate on larger, sector-focused M&A activity. As a consequence, we are proposing to close some parts of that business.
“We will consult on this with people in these teams over the coming weeks. This will undoubtedly be an unsettling time for those affected and we will be doing everything we can to support them.”
The restructuring highlights how some of the Big Four are continuing to cut jobs into 2024, with rival EY quietly laying off dozens of staff in January. PwC also announced 600 job cuts towards the end of last year, while KPMG axed roles and froze pay for about 12,000 employees.
In October, the Financial Times reported that Deloitte was planning to axe about 150 junior consulting roles as part of its initial redundancy round. The latest cuts will also affect a handful of junior staff, one person familiar with the matter said, but not graduates who joined the firm in September 2023.
The person added that Deloitte would seek to redeploy affected staff where possible, adding that the 800 job cuts announced in September were reduced to around 700 following a consultation.
During its latest financial year, Deloitte’s UK and Swiss operations reported revenues of £5.6bn, a 14 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. Partners at the firm took home an average of £1.06mn during the period, which was the highest average partner pay among the Big Four last year.
In September, Richard Houston, UK chief executive of Deloitte, said he expected markets to “remain challenging” as Britain contended with ongoing cost of living concerns and slow economic growth.
