Bringing Ingenuity to Life leads to record year for PA Consulting

PA Consulting, the consultancy that's bringing ingenuity to life, today announces a record performance for the year ending December 2021. PA's teams of experts have applied their ingenuity to deliver innovation for their clients during a transformative year. PA's results make it one of the fastest growing major consultancies in 2021.

In 2021 PA:

• Generated fee income of £691.5 million, with 24 per cent YOY growth.
• Recruited 50 new partners into the firm, a record number.
• Welcomed circa 1400 people.
• Launched and committed £10 million to The PA Foundation to support disadvantaged groups across its global communities.
• Achieved outstanding testimonials from its clients, with 98 per cent of clients saying they would recommend PA.

PA is the only company with the expertise to accelerate new growth ideas from concept, through design, development, and to commercial success. And to revitalise organisations, building the leadership, culture, systems and processes to make innovation a reality.

In 2021, PA continued delivering exciting work across the consumer and manufacturing, defence and security, energy and utilities, financial services, government and public services, health and life sciences, and transport sectors. During the year, PA also continued to hire world-class talent and re-doubled its investment in creating a culture where its people excel.

The completion of Jacobs' strategic investment in March 2021 marked the beginning of a successful new chapter for PA. Jacobs' complementary capabilities have further strengthened PA's ability to deliver innovative solutions for its clients.

2021 highlights

Innovating for clients

PA continued its purpose of bringing ingenuity to life to build a positive human future through delivering outstanding work for clients in an ever-changing world. It has a unique range of experts – strategists, innovators, designers, consultants, digital experts, scientists, engineers and technologists – who are able to deliver end-to-end innovation, together with its clients.

In 2021, PA designed the UK's new EV chargepoint concept to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles in the global efforts against climate change.

PA also joined forces with Unilever to rapidly evolve its workforce strategy, protecting employees as the pandemic accelerated. Together, PA and Unilever designed a world-leading digital tool that provided real-time and predictive intelligence from a global and regional level down to individual Unilever sites.

PA partnered with start-up Wildtype to take its sustainable lab-grown salmon to market to preserve the environment while meeting consumer demand, and enabled clean energy innovation for wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas.

PA joined up with US start-up Bearpac Medical to develop a device to improve end-of-life patient comfort in healthcare, and created a ground-breaking virtual reality ‘Museum of the Future' with the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, to explore future operating environments.

Investing in people

PA's people bring real-world skillsets and experience to tackle the biggest challenges for its clients. In 2021, PA welcomed 1,392 people, including 50 new partners. PA hired a series of new senior leaders including, in 2021, John Cala to lead its Americas team, John Edson as US Head of Design and Engineering, and Aris Karcanias as Global Head of Energy and Utilities. So far in 2022, PA has welcomed Tracey Countryman as Head of Markets, Rina Ladva as Head of Alliances, Platforms and Products, Charlene Li as Chief Research Officer, Will Lambe as Chief Financial Officer and Kelly Olsen as Chief Information Officer. Their appointments will further accelerate PA's rapid growth.

Ensuring PA people's personal and professional growth, wellbeing and fulfilment is at the heart of PA's people strategy. In 2021, PA expanded its mentoring and virtual learning opportunities via the PA Academy. It rolled out company-wide Race Allyship training, launched its Women in Leadership programme and continued to grow its employee networks, including Mental Health & Wellbeing, Military, Pride, RISE (Racial Inclusion and Social Equity), and Women's network.

2021 also saw PA people continue to give back to their communities, volunteering their skills and experience for societal good. PA interns were invited to tackle real technology challenges – from creating more cost-effective diagnostic devices to designing a global asset tracking system – at its Global Innovation and Technology Centre in Cambridge, UK. And PA helped disadvantaged students develop leadership skills through its UK and US Springboard work experience programmes. Its Women in Tech team trained women in digital skills, whilst its ninth Raspberry Pi Competition promoted STEM education by encouraging schoolchildren in the UK and the Netherlands to use a Raspberry Pi microcomputer to innovate during the pandemic.

At the end of 2021, PA also established The PA Foundation. PA will work together with The PA Foundation to develop and inspire people, particularly those facing disadvantage, to be the innovators and leaders of tomorrow, applying their ingenuity to solve the world's biggest challenges.PA has committed £10 million over the next five years to The PA Foundation as well as 10,000 hours of skills-based volunteering in its first year, to amplify the impact of its giving back and volunteering work.

Ken Toombs, PA Consulting CEO, says: “It has been another remarkable year for PA. I have witnessed, with great pride, our teams applying their ingenuity to tackle transformational issues and deliver end-to-end innovation for clients in extraordinary times. This momentum is reflected in our strong business performance; we generated fee income of £691.5 million in 2021, growing our business by 24%.

“What sets us apart is our dedication to innovating our clients' experience of working with us and creating value – bringing ingenuity to life in every interaction. We are proud of our ability to take something from concept, through design, development, and to commercial success to help our clients innovate and revitalise their organisation. We thank them for their trust and collaboration.

“Looking forward, a strong 2021 means we are in a great position for growth – for our clients and our people. Our purpose and strategy are clear. We will focus growth by investing in building our deep sector expertise and bringing together our end-to-end capabilities to create even more ingenious responses to clients' biggest challenges. And we will ensure we continue to recruit amazing talent, and further invest in creating opportunities for our people to learn, develop and build exciting and rewarding careers.”