Our clients & markets

Nick Turner, Chief Growth Officer

Throughout the year, we’ve played an important role in helping our clients successfully navigate a challenging economic landscape. 

With big ambitions and complex challenges to tackle, our clients rightly expect us to understand their sector and business in depth and provide insights and solutions that join the dots across their organisation.

Often, they’re looking for a trusted partner. A collaborator to bring critical thinking and wider market knowledge to the challenge, and to focus on tailored solutions that will transform their businesses and enable them to adapt to new demands.  

With a focus on the issues that matter, we’re supporting clients to transition to the green economy , embed ESG-related practices into their business and make the most of AI and digital technologies . 

Additionally, we continue to focus on supporting business growth and resilience through M&A, meeting the needs of the regulatory environment and supporting the development of skills across the UK’s nations and regions through our Growth 2035 initiative. 

Our latest CFO Survey indicates growing business and investor confidence and as we look to the year ahead, we’re encouraged by early signs of economic growth. We’re ready to play our part in growing the UK economy and supporting our clients to do the same.

Gurm Dhillon, UK Leader, M&A

High inflation and interest-rate volatility were among the factors contributing to a decline in volume deals we saw in the earlier part of the year.

Now, after a period of greater stability, it’s encouraging to see M&A returning as a core strategic option for management teams and we expect to continue to see an increase in deal volumes.

Our ambition is to keep building our reputation as the partner of choice across the full M&A life cycle. That means continuing our work alongside clients, delivering the M&A services they need to help realise their unique ambitions and looking creatively at how M&A can transform their businesses.

We have seen divestitures become a growing priority for businesses as they look to simplify their business models: Deloitte’s 2024 Global Corporate Divestiture Survey shows that 78% of corporate business leaders - twice as many as in our 2022 survey - are considering at least three divestments in the coming year. 

In the year ahead we will continue to respond to the need to support complex corporate separations, subsequent integrations and an increasing demand to create value on both sides of private equity deals.

Anne-Marie Malley, UK Sustainability & Climate Leader

The decisions we make today chart the course for tomorrow. Over the last year, our teams have come together with our clients and partners to illuminate a clear, more sustainable path forward for business.  

Combining innovation, technology solutions and industry experience, we are helping our clients accelerate transparent reporting and tackle complex challenges like transitioning to net zero, building responsible supply chains and managing climate adaptation and resilience.  

One of the roles we are proud to fulfil is sharing good practice, to help businesses learn from each other to accelerate speed and confidence to clients’ decision making. For example, to help the UK reach net zero by 2050, we brought together people across all sectors to collaborate to share ideas and solutions relating to the energy transition. 

Other examples of our work this year include supporting DCC Energy’s work to transform its business for the green economy and working with Earthshot Prize winners, like Notpla, to scale their innovative solutions and reach their potential. 

Everyone has a part to play in creating a more sustainable planet and, through our WorldClimate sustainability plan, we are encouraging all of our people to take action to reduce their business impact, adopting Clause Zero as a way of working together to help frame new norms in areas like business travel and meetings. 

As we focus on the year ahead, we look forward to supporting our clients take decisions to help protect our planet while also strengthening and creating value in their organisation.  

Together, we are building vibrant economies that will be sustainable well into the future. 

Sam Roddick, UK Technology & Digital Leader

Digital technology is one of the most powerful tools companies have. In today’s digital economy, when companies want to get ahead of the competition, innovate, serve customers in new ways and create the value they need to thrive, it’s tech they turn to. 

Over the last year, we’ve continued to collaborate with clients to help them decide the shape their transformations should take. This means understanding their goals and bringing a whole range of tech solutions, skills and industry expertise to deliver them.   

In some cases, we’re building and delivering new tech solutions, like in our work with AstraZeneca to digitise patient information leaflets, offering big potential benefits for patients, healthcare systems and the planet. In others, we’re working with clients to co-create and design new, digital customer experiences, like our work with Aegon testing ideas for a new pension service.

As the potential of AI and GenAI continues to be realised, we’re working with clients to explore how it can enable businesses to operate more efficiently. For example, working with health enterprise platform GoodShape to deepen its understanding of employee health and wellbeing with machine learning, exploring new applications of GenAI through our own ‘PairD’ platform and sharing this with Scope to help the charity develop digital skills and use AI in a safe way. 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’re looking forward to being part of even more creative, innovative digital solutions in the year ahead.

Dan Barlow, Managing Partner for Regional Markets

More than 7,000 of Deloitte’s people are based in the UK’s nations and regions. Our businesses based outside of London generate about a third of our UK firm’s revenue. 

Our continued commitment to and investment in regional growth includes opening new offices in Edinburgh’s city centre last year and sustainability-focused offices in Manchester and Bristol this summer.  

Our regional businesses understand that a clear vision and high levels of collaboration between business, the public sector and academia are vital ingredients to help a region thrive. 

In recognition of this, the Growth 2035 insight series we launched this year sets out a vision for the UK economy and seeks to identify the actions that business, the public sector, politicians and academics can take together to enable the UK to be a high growth economy by the year 2035.  

At our first event in Manchester, hosted in partnership with the Manchester Alliance Business School, we shared our proposition that, if the UK growth rate increases to 2% per annum by 2035, rising further to 2.5% by 2050, then the UK economy will be almost half a trillion pounds larger. 

Having brought attendees together to help identify areas for collaboration between private and public sector on skills, infrastructure, homes and investment – and especially by taking action on sustainability and climate and adoption of technology - we remain confident that the UK can be a high-growth economy.

In the year ahead, we’re looking forward to engaging regions across the UK with this vision.