Professional Services

Sectors

Northern Ireland has become a leading global location for professional and legal services investment.

There are over 16,000 people employed in Professional and Legal services in Northern Ireland, and the region offers a ready pool of culturally-compatible, highly educated talent.

The professional services cluster in Northern Ireland includes companies that have reached significant scale, having developed large multi-disciplinary teams.

Three of the “Big 4” accountancy houses have located their UK Delivery centres, providing client-facing services, in Belfast and both Deloitte and PwC’s Belfast centres are their largest centres in the UK outside of London.

Price Waterhouse Coopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) is a multinational professional services network of firms operating as partnerships under the PwC brand.

PwC ranks as the second largest professional services firm network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG.

    • The Company was founded by Samuel Lowell Price, Edwin Waterhouse, William Cooper.

    • The company is headquartered in London, UK.

    • The Company is privately owned (UK and US firms are LLPs)

    • The Company has circa 250,000 employees (2020).

On 2nd January 2020, the Company announced creation of more than 600 high-quality Assured Skills Academy training places.

PwC has worked with the Department which has invested £4.4million to develop three Assured Skills Academies. They will be run by Belfast Metropolitan College and Ulster University (UU) to deliver training programmes to upskill people who will receive a guaranteed interview, when they graduate, to compete for 600 exciting new jobs at PwC, as part of significant growth for the firm in Northern Ireland.

The Company currently employs 2,000 staff in Belfast.

Key People:

Belfast office - Waterfront Plaza, 8 Laganbank Rd, Belfast BT1 3LR.

Website - www.pwc.co.uk

PA Consulting Group

PA Consulting Group is a management consultancy that specialises in strategy, technology and innovation. It has clients in both the private and public sector, ranging from start-ups to national governments, and operates from offices across the UK, US, Europe and the Nordics.

    • The Company was founded by Ernest Butten, Tom Kirkham and Dr David Seymour in 1943.

    • The company is headquartered in London, UK.

    • The Company is privately owned.

    • The Company has circa 2,800 employees (2020).

On 4th September 2018, the Company announced creation of 400 high-quality jobs in Belfast.

The initial focus for PA will be on Digital Engineering. With roles from graduate-level developers through to Senior Engineering roles available there are opportunities for those interested in digital technology to work on projects involving Dev Ops, software development, data analytics, security, and automated intelligence.

The Company currently employs 80 staff in Belfast.

Key People:

Belfast office - 1st Floor, Centre House, 79 Chichester St, Belfast BT1 4JR.

Website - www.paconsulting.com

Deloitte Digital

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is a multinational professional services network.

Deloitte is one of the "Big Four" accounting organisations and the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of professionals.

    • The Company was founded by William Welch Deloitte in 1845.

    • The company is headquartered in London, UK.

    • The Company is privately owned.

    • The Company has circa 312,000 employees (2019).

Deloitte's presence in Northern Ireland was historically focused on accounting and tax, however in 2012 the Company invested heavily in technical consulting, which would become Deloitte Digital.

Deloitte were a pioneer of the NI Assured Skills Programme - a pre-employment training programme, designed to up-skill candidates for eventual employment.

Deloitte has participated in Assured Skills Academies including Data Analytics, DevOps, Salesforce, Health Technologies and Robotics.

On 9th September 2014, the Company announced creation of more than 338 high-quality jobs.

The Company currently employs 800 staff in Belfast.

Key People:

Belfast office - The Gasworks, 7 Cromac Avenue, Belfast, BT7 2JA.

Website - www.deloittedigital.com


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