A major firm has announced it will be cutting 600 jobs across the UK. According to sources, KPMG told staff on Friday (March 27) in a video call.

The audit team will lose 440 assistant manager roles (primarily involving qualified accountants at the assistant manager level), this represent about 6% of the audit team’s 7,100-person team. The advisory team will lose 120 positions from the enterprise risk department, with roles advising companies on governance, risk, and compliance most under threat. This represents a loss of about 2% of this team. Leadership has reportedly pushed for the redundancies due to concerns about hitting budget targets. An anonymous staff member told GB News that lots of consultants don’t have project assignments, saying: “We’ve had a large bench for about six months and not much in the pipeline. We have also lost some fairly regular income projects.”

KPMG blamed the redundancies on low staff turnover and current market conditions: “Current market conditions mean our attrition rates are very low within certain parts of our audit population, which is why we are proposing to right-size those areas.”

The company went on: “This isn’t a decision we take lightly, and we will support our people throughout this consultation.”

Employees at risk of redundancy have been notified, and a consultation process will run until May, when final decisions will be made.

This comes as professional services firms face challenges amid declining demand from pandemic-era highs. PwC got rid of 175 junior auditors last year and McKinsey discussed cutting 10% of staff from non-client-facing departments.

Despite challenges, partners at KPMG earned more than their peers in the industry, averaging £880,000 per year in 2025 – this is an 11% increase on 2024.

KPMG also increased its bonus pool for 18,000 employees in the UK and Switzerland by 18% and had a 14% rise in pre-tax profits to £576 million.