Ingenious thinking is delivering enduring results for clients and record growth for PA Consulting

PA Consulting announces its 2018 financial results  

PA Consulting, the global innovation and transformation consultancy, is bringing ingenuity to life for clients and building a better, safer and more sustainable world for the future. PA’s distinctive approach, helping clients to innovate and seize new opportunities, is reflected in its record financial performance in 2018. 

2018 in numbers:

• fee income up 14 per cent to £455.8million (2017: £400.1million)
• consulting team growth of 10 per cent
• exceptional client value with 98 per cent of clients recommending PA.

Taking clients further, faster

PA delivered outstanding client work in 2018. Its distinctive approach to inspiring change, innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies has enabled clients to seize the best opportunities. 

In the UK, PA supported Skipping Rocks Lab, a start-up, to create an edible alternative to single use plastic drink packaging. In Norway, PA improved how local authorities deliver their citizen-facing digital services. In the United States and India, PA partnered with Virgin Hyperloop One to build the first new mode of transport in a century, one that will revolutionise travel. 

PA also worked with the United Nations to identify the technologies most likely to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, setting the blueprint to a better and more sustainable future for all. 

Expanding capabilities through acquisitions

In response to growing demand for its strategy, digital and innovations skills, PA strengthened its team in 2018 with three acquisitions and a new digital hub. 

PA welcomed Boston-based Essential Design, an innovation strategy and product design business. Essential are experts in user-centred design, customer experience and getting innovation to market. This acquisition will help PA clients transform how they bring new products and experiences to market. 

We Are Friday,a specialist digital service design and engineering agency also joined PA. We Are Friday helps clients such as HSBC, Talk Talk and British Red Cross reimagine and design their customer experience, improve the technology that powers their organisation and develop the capability to better manage their technology themselves. 

Sparkler – a leading London-based digital insight and strategy consultancy helping some of the world’s leading blue-chip companies such as Microsoft, eBay, Diageo, Sky and Uber to innovate their services and position their brands for success – joined PA to add to its expertise in customer insight, brand strategy and service design. 

PA also opened a new digital hub in Belfast and commenced recruitment of 400 new digital specialists to expand its digital expertise. This team works with clients globally, using digital technologies to adapt and transform their businesses. 

Bringing ingenuity to life in our communities

PA is passionate about giving people the chance to ignite a passion for ingenuity. In 2018, this included interns on the threshold of careers, enjoying real technology challenges at PA’s Global Innovation and Technology Centre, and sixth-formers from disadvantaged backgrounds learning important leadership skills as part of PA’s Springboard initiative. Schoolchildren also discovered the thrill of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in PA’s ever-popular national Raspberry Pi competition. 

Alan Middleton, PA Consulting CEO, says: “We’re not a traditional consulting firm and we think this is key to our ongoing success and why 98 per cent of our clients recommend us. We believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future in a technology-driven world. Our strategy work helps clients deliver innovation into the real world. It’s innovation that moves an organisation forward, yet is commercially profitable, technically feasible and delights customers”.  

“Our people are strategists, technologists, digital experts, consultants, designers, scientists and engineers – all of whom bring real-world experience, and apply it at pace. We offer the innovation, design, digital and transformation skills that our clients need to change, fast. There’s a sense of optimism behind our purpose. And it’s a feeling that inspires our people as well as our clients.”