TL;DR

EY’s UK business grew fee income 2% to £3.86bn in the year to 3 July 2026, in results published on 27 October. Its sales of AI and data projects rose 46% on the previous year, yet consulting revenue fell 3%. Every UK employee now has access to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

The numbers

Growth came from EY-Parthenon, its strategy arm, up 6%, with tax and assurance each up 3%. Those gains offset the dip in consulting. By sector, consumer and health grew 8% and technology, media and telecoms 5%.

Distributable profit before tax rose to £702m from £679m, and average distributable profit per partner went up by more than 10% to £870,000. EY hired 2,300 people during the year, promoted or progressed more than 3,700 existing staff and raised the total value of staff bonuses by over 25%. Average employee pay rose 5.2%.

Where AI shows up

The 46% rise in AI and data sales is the standout figure, and EY presents it as clients moving from experiments to projects meant to deliver results. Inside the firm, staff logged more than 1.2 million hours of learning, and Copilot was rolled out across the UK workforce.

Globally, EY and Microsoft are investing £750m ($1bn) in a programme pairing Microsoft’s forward deployed engineers with EY industry specialists to build sector-specific AI tools, a model EY was already recruiting for in the UK and Ireland. EY also says its worldwide audit platform now has agentic AI built in, covering 160,000 engagements and 130,000 professionals.

Anna Anthony, who leads EY in the UK and Ireland, called the figures “a solid set of results in a challenging market”.

Looking Forward

EY’s release gives a growth rate but no base figure for AI and data sales, so the 46% cannot be weighed against the firm’s £3.86bn total. In our view, the more telling detail is the split: rising demand for AI work while consulting revenue overall shrank. One reading is that clients are shifting advisory spend towards AI rather than adding to it, though the release gives no figures to test that. Whether the rest of the Big Four report the same shift will show if this is an EY story or a sector one.

Sterling figure converted at the ECB reference rate of 27 October 2026 ($1 = £0.75).