Deloitte set to boost UK staff bonuses and promotions
Big Four giant Deloitte’s UK staff are set to be given higher bonuses and larger salary increases over the course of the year as the firm is set to surpass its profit targets.
The firm’s UK chief executive, Richard Houston, said today that bonus funds would be upped by 14 per cent, while salaries would spike by around 4.2 per cent, a 2.9 per cent increase on last year.
Alongside this, more staff are due to receive promotions at the Big Four firm, Houston said, with 6,000 employees set to be promoted at the start of the new financial year in June, a whopping 28 per cent and up 25 per cent compared to last year.
This comes as the firm is said to be on course for an uptick in revenues, particularly due to the widespread adoption of AI across client advising, deals, and supply chain resilience, as reported by the Financial Times.
Houston said the Big Four giant is expected to exceed its profit plan for the current financial year, in part due to “improved pricing” and leveraging staff more to achieve higher profitable and billed hours.
However, he also said this is partly because the firm uses what he called “delivery centres”, secondary offices located in low-cost, offshore locations.
Deloitte in 2025 reported a 1 per cent drop in revenue, its first plunge in over 15 years since 2010. This was to a large extent due to its consulting arm performing weaker as many client investments were stalled and pumped into large projects.
AI is a double-edged sword for the Big Four
The professional services sector is undergoing a wave of changes driven by AI across hiring, training, and client services.
Utilising AI is slowly emerging as a profitable arm for many consulting firms, particularly those that are dedicating more time to advising companies on how to use the technology and less time to more traditional advisory work.
However, many firms across the sector have been cutting headcount to prioritise AI for administrative tasks, leading to rounds of redundancies.
PwC revealed in April that it was planning on standardising its consulting services across its global business to utilise the technology, following a decline in fees in the consultancy division.
EY also in April shared that it was moving to hire a new team of AI recruits across the UK and Ireland to work directly with clients to meet growing demand to use the tech.