Accountancy giant reports profit and turnover boost

Accountancy giant EY has reported a growth in UK revenues of 7.3% for its full-year 2021 results, with the firm’s partners seeing their bonuses rising over £80,000 last year

EY saw fee income grow to £2.75bn from £2.57bn the previous year, with profits rising from £479m to £533m. Average distributable profit per partner increased to £749,000 from £667,000 in FY20. Meanwhile the firm paid around £83m in bonuses to EY people (excluding Partners).

EY has reported strong growth across all its service lines. Revenues in Strategy and Transactions grew 12.1%, Consulting grew 9.5%, Assurance grew 5.8% and Tax grew 4%.

Hywel Ball, EY’s UK chair said: “We’ve seen strong balanced growth across all areas of our business. This has been driven by high levels of demand from our clients as companies adapted to the realities of COVID-19, as well as the long-term investments we’ve made in our people and services which has meant we’ve been resilient, agile and able to respond to our stakeholders’ needs.

“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve focussed on doing the right thing for our people, clients and the communities in which we operate. From the start, we reassured our people around their job security and pay and made a decision not to use the Government’s financial support. We also doubled a period of special leave for those facing emergency situations and extended discretionary sick pay to all our people, regardless of their length of service. We’ve since hired over 1000 students, positively impacted almost 1.3m people through our EY Ripples corporate responsibility programme, and have worked hard to support our clients as they have tackled the challenges posed by COVID-19. We’ve also increased our investments in audit quality and have made a series of acquisitions which will bring new capabilities and skills as we look to expand in new areas such as digital and technology consulting.

“The global pandemic has been one of the most challenging periods that many of us will have ever experienced in our professional or personal lives and I’m incredibly proud of the resilience and adaptability shown by our teams. We recognised this in April, when we awarded all our people with an exceptional payment to thank them for their hard work during this time.”

EY hired over 2,550 people over the last financial year, with 36% of roles based outside of London.