U.K. arm of EY preparing to cut jobs

Jack Taylor/Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty

Ernst & Young LLP is planning to cut jobs in the U.K. as a challenging market environment crimps appetite for professional services.

EY's U.K. financial services consulting practice "has taken measures to align current resourcing requirements with market demand," the company said in an emailed statement. "Regrettably, a group of employees in this part of the business are now subject to a redundancy consultation process."

The cuts will affect about 5% of the 2,300 people employed in the financial services consulting division, the Financial Times reported earlier on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. 

The firm has also told its U.K. staff to expect less generous pay raises and smaller bonus pools that would be shared among fewer people, the FT report said.

The move comes after rival PricewaterhouseCoopers announced it's cutting pay increases and bonuses for some of its 25,000 U.K. employees. An uncertain economic outlook is reversing the fortunes of the Big Four accounting firms, which hired hundreds of thousands of people betting on a post-Covid recovery.

Still, EY's UK unit is seeing double-digit growth and most of its local employees will receive a pay raise this year, as well as a variable bonus, the company said.