As the professional services sector looks to rapidly adopt AI, a cull of younger staff has been discussed as an inevitability. But even as the Big Four push ahead with trimming their junior headcounts, rival BDO has announced plans to reduce its senior headcount, to make space for new hires.
Amid the UK consulting sector’s continued downturn, the largest entities in the sector have consistently been looking for ways to preserve their profitability. And increasingly, this is culminating in reports of job cuts, across the Big Four of Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG – including hiring freezes on junior staff, whose work they say can increasingly be done by automated tools.
This presents a long-term challenge for the industry however; as the partners of the professional services sector’s tomorrow are increasingly being denied a crucial break in the sector. With no junior roles, the opportunity to both gain crucial industrial insight, and knowledge of the internal operations of a consulting firm, may pass a generation of talent by.
Mid-tier advisory BDO looks to have challenged this trend, however. While the firm is still looking to push ahead with its own technological innovation programme, it is also planning to cut around 6% of its total partner headcount. As reported by the Financial Times, the firm is set to cut 31 partners – many of them senior members, who were expected to retire soon, or were hires from rivals – as it looks to make room for younger staff.
Speaking to the Financial Times, a spokesperson for the firm confirmed, “To ensure we are a partnership operating at peak performance in high-growth areas, a small number of partners from each business area is leaving the firm, with some partners having brought forward their existing retirement plans.”
Firms like BDO already rely on developing a pipeline of younger employees who will progress to senior management – as they find it difficult to challenge the largest firms in the industry for senior external hires. However, recent data suggests that small- to mid-tier accountancy firms are facing staffing shortages, hindering growth – so making it clear they offer opportunities for new hires, and progression, might help them to begin winning more talent from the UK’s pool of graduate talent.
City AM reported that Louise Sayers, head of audit, people and culture at BDO, believed the accountancy sector faces a “perception problem” among younger talent. But BDO is determined to challenge that – and along with its newest policy, has also announced a new work experience programme, in partnership with Connectr, targeting students in Years 9, 11, 12, and 13.
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