EY reports UK revenue of £2.41bn and 5 per cent growth in Scotland

EY has increased revenue by 2.7 per cent in the UK and by 5 per cent in Scotland during a financial year ending 30 June that also saw total UK fee income rise from £2.35 billion to £2.41 billion with a five year compound annual growth rate of 7 per cent.

EY grew its business to more than 14,500 people across 23 offices in the UK, including 1,000 people in Scotland, and a network of 150 countries and 260,000 people around the world.

This investment helped EY to serve 23,000 UK clients, both large and small, supporting economic growth across the country and helping to deliver on our purpose of Building a better working world.

Across the UK service lines, Tax grew by 7.3 per cent, Advisory grew by 3.8 per cent and Transaction Advisory Services was up by 1.5 per cent.

Assurance growth fell slightly by -1.7 per cent whilst Audit grew by 4 per cent. Financial Services, the UK’s largest sector, grew by more than 7 per cent this year.

More than 4,500 people were promoted in the UK, including 15 per cent of Scotland’s workforce, and £36 million invested on professional skills training and personal development, including apprenticeships.

EY continues to believe that greater diversity leads to improved business performance and it recently announced the firm’s UK board will be 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women from December.

Sue Dawe, EY’s head of financial services in Scotland, was one of two women recently appointed.

In addition, EY is proud to be ranked second in the Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers list and took a leadership position in publishing its gender and ethnicity pay gap to include Partner data, above and beyond the Government regulations.

Highlights from Scotland:

Mark Harvey, EY Senior Partner, Scotland, said: “For the tenth successive year our practice in Scotland has recorded yet another year of growth and this is largely due to our continued investment in our people who live in Scotland and work with Scottish clients. Having this presence of talented advisors in the market has allowed us to enhance our relationships, knowledge and expertise to the benefit of our clients.

“The positive financial performance has been supported by the efforts of our transactions team by consistently delivering on deals for clients with an increasing number from the mid-market space in addition to big corporates. Work on high profile deals such as the disposals of Simon Howie’s Mermaid Panels and Shore Laminates to Wilsonart, QTS Group to Renew and Forth Ports to PSP consortium or the acquisition of ESCO by Weir Group demonstrate the value of long term relationships and expertise of our transactions team in Scotland.

“The ambition of achieving long term growth will be helped by having a strong leadership team which is invariably more diverse. In Scotland our current partner group has 41% female representation and includes those from industry or with international experience all of which brings valuable and varied insight.

“In Scotland EY successfully blends its global capabilities with its local presence, highlighted by our investment in the new high technology centre - wavespace. This collaborative environment situated in our new Edinburgh office allows us to connect Scottish businesses to their counterparts in San Francisco, Shanghai and 20 similar centres around the world. Our capabilities in this area have also been strengthened by the number of EY tech specialists rising to 100.”

Meanwhile, the EY Foundation saw 290 EY people volunteering their time and skills to help more than 350 young people and social entrepreneurs during FY18.

Mr Harvey added: “We are bringing our global commitment to build a better working world to life in a meaningful and tangible way. Our ambition is to support disadvantaged young people into the work place and to support companies get ready to employ them. Whether mentoring young people, facilitating employability workshops, coaching social entrepreneurs or raising tens of thousands of pounds for charity, making time to give back to our local communities is important for our people.”

The past year saw EY further adapt its recruitment process for graduates and school leavers to boost diversity among new recruits. This follows the move in 2015 to remove academic entry requirements, after which EY saw a 10 per cent increase in joiners from state schools and a 7 per cent increase in people who were the first in their family to go to university. As part of the changes for this year, EY removed the conventional ‘one-to-one’ final interview, typically held at the end of a recruitment process. Instead, the process will conclude with an assessment event, providing a more rounded view of each candidate.

Steve Varley, EY’s UK Chairman added: “We remain focused on the quality of our audit work and will continue our investment in even better technology and training for our people and further strengthened our long term Audit Quality Programme which started in 2014 to challenge and guide our teams. We are also proud to be playing a central role in the Embankment Project, working with the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism and over 30 leading companies including Unilever, Blackstone and JP Morgan to measure and communicate the long term value they create for their stakeholders. The results of this unique market-led initiative are due to be announced next month in Washington DC.”

UK 2018 financial highlights