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Management consultants boosted by firms flocking to AI as revenues surpass £18bn

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WinYield said that less than ten per cent of the lenders it interviewed had staff with previous relevant credit experience.

Companies scrambling to unlock benefits from implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools into their business to steal a march on competitors has boosted UK management consultants’ income, a new report has found.

Growing demand among firms for external experts lifted the UK management consultancy sector’s income to £18.6bn last year, up from £14.4bn in 2021, according to the sector’s representative body.

Buoyancy is forecast to carry on this year, with revenues in the sector tipped to expand 13 per cent.

Research by the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) and research firm Savanta found that businesses are trying to erect barriers to avoid being infiltrated by cyber hackers.

They are also seeking to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into business practices to maximise revenues, steering them toward employing the services of management consultants like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group.

“Part of [last year’s] growth [was] because our profession is widening the services we offer to clients, increasingly in the digital space with more demands placed on us by firms from tackling cybersecurity threats to providing critical support on adopting artificial intelligence,” Tamzen Isacsson, MCA chief executive, said.

Every sector of the UK’s management consultant industry is riding the wave of growing demand. Medium sized organisations clocked a 23 per cent revenue uplift last year, while large and small companies registered a 23 per cent and 19 per cent boost respectively.

The Square Mile’s banks, brokers and insurers had one of the strongest appetites to call in management consultants, as did the government. Both have had strong ties with the sector for decades.

Unsurprisingly, nearly two in three management consultants are employed in London, the highest share of any region in the UK.

Nusrat Ghani MP, minister for industry and investment security, said: “It is great to see the continued strength and growth of the vibrant UK consulting sector. Growing demand in areas such as digital transformation and sustainability advice is creating thousands of new jobs across the UK.”