TL;DR

Deloitte UK’s revenue grew 2% to £5.81bn in the year to 31 May 2026, with every business line expanding and its strategy, risk and transactions group back in growth after a double-digit fall the year before. Darren Graves, who took over as UK boss in June, used the results to argue that AI raises the value of experienced staff rather than replacing them.

The numbers

Technology and transformation led the firm at 4% growth. Audit and assurance rose 3%, tax and legal 2%, and strategy, risk and transactions 1%, a modest gain that reverses last year’s 10% decline. Distributable profit rose 14% to £899m.

Equity partners took home £1.125m on average, up 7%. The number of equity partners rose 6.5% to 784, the most Deloitte UK has ever had. The firm took on 3,500 new staff, enlarged its bonus pool by 14% and lifted average in-grade salaries by more than 4%.

That hiring follows a voluntary redundancy offer to auditors earlier in the year, prompted by low staff turnover. City AM reports some 200 took it, with a package that included eight months’ full pay.

Graves on AI

Graves called the year “a good set of results” against geopolitical uncertainty and “AI advancement”. His central claim was that as AI “makes intelligence increasingly abundant”, people will matter more. “AI can’t replace lived experience or replicate the judgement and unwritten know-how built over years of working alongside clients and colleagues,” he said.

Context

The results show Deloitte still hiring at scale, with technology and transformation its fastest-growing UK line. City AM notes the firm’s global technology and transformation division slowed in the latest global results, even as the UK arm grew.

Workers themselves are less focused on AI than the debate implies. Asked what most endangers their jobs in the coming three years, 44% of UK respondents to PwC’s latest Hopes and Fears survey chose a volatile economy; 37% chose AI absorbing more of their work. PwC UK has also recently named its own chief AI officer.

Looking forward

In our view, the test of Graves’s argument will come in graduate intake and junior headcount rather than partner pay. For UK businesses buying advisory work, the question worth asking suppliers is how much of the fee now reflects AI-assisted work, and whether pricing has moved to match.