Our clients & markets
Nick Turner
Chief Growth Officer
This year, we saw strong performances across our industry teams with heightened demand for our services in areas including banking, travel, public sector and life sciences.
Reflecting the sentiment of our UK CFO survey, which saw business confidence dip, growth slowed as the year progressed.
In tough economic times, society rightly expects more from business. We’re working closely with our clients to boost growth and create value in ways that benefit not only their people and shareholders, but the world around us.
This means focusing on some of the biggest challenges facing society today - issues that define our age and on which business can play an important role and help influence. Like how digital technology can be used to support inclusive growth; how to strengthen and differentiate businesses with ESG and how to build resilience in companies all over the UK’s nations and regions.
We continue to strengthen our capabilities in response to these important areas, extending skills in ESG, digital transformation and M&A practices. And we’re continuing to build expert hubs all over the UK, re-locating our offices in Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester to better accommodate our hybrid ways of working.
As we look ahead, we will continue to be responsive to markets conditions and proactive in our approach to client engagement. With talented teams across our nations and regions, we’re making an impact that matters, supporting the economy and contributing to the communities we’re part of.
We look forward to supporting our clients and helping them thrive in the coming year.
We’ve supported SSEN Transmission’s work securing supply chains to connect offshore wind to the electricity grid.
We’ve supported Diageo’s work to connect with its tech-savvy consumers in the metaverse.
Our growth priorities
Anne-Marie Malley
UK Sustainability & Climate Leader
Today, the business imperative to tackle climate change and be more sustainable is not to survive, but to thrive.
Meeting the sustainability and climate related expectations of consumers, shareholders and their own people is a way businesses can become more resilient and more competitive.
This year, our firm’s specialists - in areas like supply-chain resilience, sustainability regulation, climate technology and circularity - have come together to help clients solve complex challenges and make a positive impact in the UK and globally.
For example by supporting SSEN Transmission's work to connect offshore-wind-power to the grid, working with Earthshot prize winners to scale up innovative ideas in Bangladesh and Nairobi, and supporting WWF in its global work to encourage sustainable practices in financial services.
The breadth of our work puts us in a strong position to support clients’ climate efforts. Working together, we’re setting the direction and pace of action needed to meet their sustainability goals. Importantly, we’re helping businesses learn from each other and providing confidence in an area that’s new to many.
Seeing the commitments our clients are making inspires us to go further. We’re committed to taking decisive action ourselves, through our WorldClimate sustainability plan, and encouraging clients to adopt Clause Zero as a way of working together to help frame new norms in areas like business travel and meetings.
Looking ahead, we’re confident that the businesses prioritising sustainability today will be in a stronger position to thrive tomorrow. We look forward to supporting more of our clients as they do just that.
Gurminder Dhillon
UK Leader M&A
Following a strong start to the year for our firm’s M&A services, we saw the market slow in the second half, reacting to a challenging environment. In the coming year, as clients look to remain resilient and find opportunities for growth, we expect M&A to be a central part of their strategies.
M&A has the power to transform businesses. Sometimes, by refocusing them, as shown by Essentra’s ambitious separation, which enabled the company to carve out and sell two thirds of its business. At other times, by scaling them, as shown by Adevinta’s bold move to double the size of its online classifieds business almost overnight.
Supporting our clients with transactions like these means we can play a role in helping them to create value and to find and explore opportunities to thrive beyond the deal.
ESG figures heavily in the growing expectations of stakeholders, including customers. The Masdar Arlington Energy deal our firm supported shows how M&A can help meet those expectations. It's helped bring two businesses together to enable them to make a bigger impact than they could have alone, working to boost the battery-energy storage capacity needed to support the UK’s decarbonization journey.
In the year ahead, we’ll continue to help clients realise their purpose and growth ambitions through M&A and to create strong, future-proofed businesses.
Sam Roddick
UK Technology & Digital Leader
Over the last year, as businesses look to build resilience and find growth opportunities, we’ve seen demand for our firm’s digital and technology transformation services continue to increase.
Technology is key to creating competitive advantage. In challenging economic times, it’s more important than ever that the investments businesses make in technology deliver value. Not only to support their day-to-day productivity and efficiency, but to expand, for example, with new services or products.
To help, we’re collaborating with clients to explore how technology can be used as a tool to bring their long-term ambitions to life. That means understanding the kind of business they want to be in future, how they want to serve their customers and the kind of organisational culture they want to create.
It might be by supporting clients as they engage people in new ways, like Diageo’s work to connect with customers in the metaverse. It might be by helping to bring an organisation’s purpose to life, like the LTA’s work to open up tennis, embedding tech in every avenue customers use to connect with the sport.
The breadth of expertise in our firm in tech enabled transformation means we’re well placed to help clients use technology to unlock and create value across their whole business.
We’re supporting the Manchester Climate Change Partnership and clients’ sustainable developments in the city.
We’re supporting the LTA’s work to open up tennis
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 represent over a third of the firm’s revenues.
We have continued in our commitment to support UK economic growth by convening public sector, private sector and academia to identify ways of working closer together across the regions and nations.
One such example was a series of events held with the University of Glasgow – ‘Shaping Scotland’s Future Economic Landscape’, attended by the Deputy First Minister, business leaders, academics and students. Together, we identified the steps required to maximise economic growth in Scotland.
For the UK to be a global leader, there needs to be a collective focus on the sectors that will supercharge it. In the UK’s nations and regions, over the last year, we’ve seen a significant increase in our work with energy-transition businesses, and in supporting central and devolved governments to achieve their health, transport and infrastructure aspirations.
There is no question that these areas will be key to driving UK growth, as will action on sustainability and climate, digital literacy and technology adoption. We are in the best possible position to support the businesses, people and organisations that will truly drive the UK’s economic growth.
2023
Annual Review
Annual Review