UK accounting firm considers outsourcing to India
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — Evelyn Partners, one of the UK’s largest accountancy firms, is considering outsourcing its basic accounting work to India as it rapidly expands its operations.
The outsourcing talks are with CLA Global Indus Value Consulting, an Indian advisory and accounting firm that joined Evelyn Partners’ network in October 2022.
Outsourcing routine tasks to India could help address Evelyn Partners’ shortage of space in its new London headquarters and reduce reliance on recruiting more UK accountants amid tight labor market conditions.
However, Evelyn Partners stated that outsourcing would not impact UK jobs.
Evelyn Partners Chief Professional Services Director Andrew Wilkes added that they “fully intend to reinvest any additional capacity back into high-skilled jobs in the UK, where we have significantly grown our professional services team over the last few years.”
The potential move follows similar outsourcing of routine processing tasks to offshore centers in India already undertaken by the Big Four — PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG — accounting firms.
Owned by private equity firm Permira and Warburg Pincus, Evelyn Partners acquired five advisory businesses in 2023 amid increasing consolidation in the accountancy sector: Dart Capital, Ashcroft Partnership LLP, Leathers LLP, Creaseys Group, and Harwood Hutton. The company has over £55 billion in assets under management as of September 2023. It also established CLA Evelyn Partners in June 2022 to provide independent audit and related services.
