EY continues strong growth in North of England, as UK revenues hit record high of £3.8bn

EY has achieved a second year of double-digit revenue growth, with UK revenues up 16% and fee income increasing to a record £3.76bn from £3.23bn the previous year. This market leading performance has been underpinned by long term investments in people, audit quality and technology. Distributable profits before tax remained broadly flat at £659m.

EY achieved strong growth across all of its service lines in the UK. Tax revenues grew by 20%, Consulting 18%, Assurance 17% and Strategy and Transactions by 8%. EY has also seen strong demand across its industry sectors with stand-out performances from Energy (28% UK revenue growth), Government & Infrastructure (26%), Technology, Media & Telecoms (15%) and Financial Services (12%).

Hywel Ball, EY’s UK Chair, commented: “These impressive results mark a third year of market leading growth in the UK. We’ve achieved record UK revenues whilst also continuing to invest for the future.

“The long-term investments we’ve made in the business have underpinned our growth and position us well to continue this trajectory. This year alone, we’ve appointed a further 267 new Partners, adding over 10% to our total UK Partner population, whilst also making a $1.4bn investment globally in AI.

“Client demand has remained strong, particularly in areas such as technology consulting, tax and audit. Companies have been looking to our deep expertise as they transform their businesses in response to the economic and regulatory environment and development of rapidly emerging technologies.”

Investing in the North of England
EY’s teams in the North of England have contributed to the firm’s strong growth in FY23 and EY has continued to make significant investments in its regional business. EY appointed 19 new Partners across the North of England and hired more than 130 talented graduates and apprentices. EY’s Manchester office welcomed 69 students – the second-highest number in any of EY’s offices outside of London in 2023 – in addition to 34 students in Leeds, 26 in Newcastle and eight in Liverpool. This month, EY also promoted more than 200 of its people across its offices in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool.

In May, EY announced the acquisition of whyaye ltd, a Newcastle-based consulting services provider for the ServiceNow platform, as part of significant ongoing investments in technology consulting services. The acquisition, known as EY whyaye, will support the growth of EY Technology Consulting services by expanding capacity, capabilities and market presence around the ServiceNow technology platform.

Client demand has remained strong. Over the course of FY23, teams across the North of England continued their momentum in the deals market, helping to seal transactions worth in the region of £2.8billion. EY in the North has also received more than 30 awards nominations in 2023 including the Northern Power Women (NPW) Awards, TheBusinessDesk’s Rainmakers Awards and Insider’s Dealmakers Awards.

The EY Foundation – EY’s independent charity – engaged with more than 1,200 young people in the North throughout FY23, as well as working with nearly 600 volunteers and more than 100 schools across the region to deliver programmes and workshops aimed at improving employability prospects and promoting social mobility in cities including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool and Bradford.

Stephen Church, EY’s UK Market Leader for the North, said: “I’m incredibly proud of our teams in the North of England. We have achieved another year of strong growth, whilst also continuing to make significant investments across our regional business.

“We have strengthened our firm with the appointment of 19 new Partners in the North and have added capabilities through an acquisition and firmwide investments in new technologies. I’m also particularly proud of our societal contribution. We have created employment opportunities for over 130 young people through our student recruitment programme and have supported future talent development across the region through our work with the EY Foundation.

“The investments we’ve made in the business mean we are well placed to support the evolving needs of clients across the North of England, whilst also supporting the long-term growth of our firm.”

Investing in People across the UK
EY has continued to make significant investments in talent, providing a platform for strong and consistent growth in FY24 and beyond. Over the last financial year, EY recruited 5,326 people, with 39% of hires based outside of London. Since January 2023, EY has welcomed over 1,800 graduates, school leavers and interns with 40% based in regional locations. As part of a commitment to social equity and targeted actions to attract talent from low-income backgrounds, around 11% of EY’s student intake disclosed they were previously eligible for free school meals. In September, the firm also announced plans to create 1,000 new jobs in Northern Ireland over five years.

EY has further strengthened the UK business with 267 new Partners, marking a 10% increase in EY’s total Partner population in the UK to 1701, compared to 1534 Partners at the start of the last financial year. 42% (112) of the new appointments are Equity Partners and around a quarter (62) of all the new Partner appointments are based outside of London.

EY has also increased its employees’ salaries by £72m and awarded variable pay bonuses of £83m this year (totalling £155m) as it continues to focus on recruiting and retaining the best talent to support future growth.

Hywel Ball commented: “I’m incredibly proud of the investments we’ve made in recruiting and retaining exceptional talent over the last financial year. We’ve hired over 5,000 people, spanning most parts of the UK, with almost 40% based outside of London. We’re also creating 1000 new jobs in Northern Ireland over the next five years.

“We employ over 21,000 people in the UK and, as a significant people business, we’re continuing to adapt to new, post-pandemic ways of working. We’re three years into our hybrid working model and are continuing to test and refine our approach. It’s vital that we continue to provide the flexibility our people want and need, whilst also supporting an ongoing culture of learning and development.”

Accelerating growth in AI
EY has made significant investments in the firm’s technology capabilities, including the announcement of a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform – EY.ai – this September following a US$1.4bn global investment. The platform is designed to help clients transform their businesses through confident and responsible adoption of AI. EY is also upskilling its 400,000 people globally with AI learning and development alongside the roll out of EY.ai LLM, a Large Language Model.

In the UK, EY has invested an additional £116.1m in technology consulting over the last three years through both acquisitions and Partner hires. EY has made eight acquisitions in the UK since April 2021.

Investing in Audit Quality
Delivering consistent high-quality audits that serve the public interest is a priority for EY and the firm continues to make significant investments. EY holds itself to the highest standards, while expecting the same of the companies it audits, and is encouraged by the progress it has made on audit quality since the Financial Reporting Council’s last review. EY’s UK audit quality strategy underwent a major redesign in 2020 and, globally, has committed to a $1bn investment in technology to support audit quality. In FY23, EY also recruited over 1,250 experienced auditors, graduates and apprentices into its UK audit teams.

EY currently audits 23 of the FTSE 100 and 77 of the FTSE 350, as well as a large number of private businesses and public sector bodies. In FY23, EY won or retained several large audit tenders including Land Securities, Coats Group, and ATG.

Commitment to environmental sustainability
EY has been globally carbon negative since 2021 and continues to make progress towards achieving its pledge to become net zero in 2025. The EY UK Net Zero Strategy supports this ambition, with actions to reduce air travel emissions and energy consumption, procure only renewable energy, set targets for suppliers and reduce environmental impacts across all internal operations. In the last financial year, the strategy has received eight environmental award nominations.

EY reduced its UK energy consumption by 21% compared to 2019 (baseline year), with 100% being backed by renewable energy certification. The firm has launched a range of new tools and guides to help EY people make more sustainable travel choices, including the ability to compare the potential carbon impact of different forms of transport and encouraging the adoption of less carbon intensive choices. Total waste fell by 63% compared to 2019 with zero waste sent to landfill. EY has also engaged a social enterprise to help reuse over 20,000 redundant IT peripherals per year, avoiding over 3 tonnes of WEEE waste annually.

Contributing to our communities
Over the last financial year, EY Ripples – the firm’s corporate responsibility programme – has contributed to a range of projects that positively impacted around 3.3m lives, with EY people taking part in 4,789 volunteering opportunities. As well as community projects, the programme supports the next generation workforce by promoting social mobility.

The EY Foundation – EY’s independent charity – has a ten-year ambition to ensure that the two million young people eligible free school meals have an equal opportunity to succeed in the workplace. Working across the country, the Foundation brings young people from low-income backgrounds and employers together by delivering paid employability skills programmes. Over the last financial year, the EY Foundation delivered 60 programmes across the UK. It supported nearly 3,000 young people, worked with over 350 employers, and created over 3,000 volunteering opportunities. The Foundation celebrates its 10-year anniversary next year and has supported over 20,000 young people since the charity was created in 2014.

In FY23, EY also launched the EY STEM app to help inspire young women aged 13-18 to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and improve the representation of women across these industries. The app offers more than 450 activities and learning modules from world-renowned institutions such as NASA, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Stanford, MIT, and UNDP.

Supporting UK entrepreneurship
EY is a longstanding supporter of entrepreneurship. The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme was founded 37 years ago to recognise entrepreneurial achievement among individuals and companies that demonstrate vision, leadership and success, and who work to improve the quality of life in their communities, countries and around the world. The 81 regional finalists in this year’s UK programme represent a combined revenue of £2.1bn and employ over 13,000 people in the UK across 16 industry sectors.