Deloitte UK Partner Pay Grows to $1.5 Million on AI Demand

Deloitte’s UK business paid its equity partners an average of about £1.13 million ($1.5 million) last year, up 7% from the year prior as the firm said demand for advice on artificial intelligence drove profit.

Revenue at the accountancy and consulting firm’s UK arm ticked up 2% to about £5.8 billion in the year ended May 31, according to a statement on Wednesday.

AI has shifted from “a tooling question to much more of a change management topic,” with clients looking at issues such as deployment, AI trust and cybersecurity, Deloitte UK Chief Executive Officer Darren Graves said in an interview. “We have begun to see that demand increase and that drove the results.”

Distributable profit at the business grew to £899 million, up 14% from £789 million the previous year.

Graves said clients were asking for projects to be delivered faster, but said the costs of technology meant that fees were not being hit by AI.

“It sometimes takes less time from a person perspective,” he said, but “this technology is expensive.”

The firm said it grew its bonus pool 14% and its equity partner pool by more than 6% to 784 people, which it said was the highest in its history.

Graves was appointed UK CEO in June after his predecessor Richard Houston moved to lead the firm’s new Europe, Middle East and Africa unit.

Deloitte’s global entity said earlier this month that its revenue grew 3.8% to $74.5 billion in the year ended May 31.