PA Consulting - Bringing Ingenuity to Life

Against a backdrop of significant political, economic, and environmental change, PA has made clear progress in its vision to work with its clients to deliver exceptional insight and impact. Building a positive human future that is safer, healthier, more equitable, prosperous, and sustainable.

Key performance highlights include:

• Generated fee income of £790 million for the year ending December 2023, up 0.5% YoY
• Achieved 73 percent growth in fee income over five years
• Recommended by 97 per cent of clients
• Volunteered more than 21,000 hours of its people’s skills and expertise to support local communities.

2023 highlights: Building a positive human future

Breakthrough technologies made real

Over the past year, organisations turned to PA when looking to deliver technology-enabled real-world innovation – whether the answer to their challenge required a change in strategy, a new product or service, or a wider enterprise transformation.

PA’s pioneering approach can be seen in its work for Hubly Surgical, which is on a mission to transform bedside neurosurgery. In 2023, a PA designed life-saving bore drill to replace archaic and high-risk methods in intracranial surgery, received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance in the US. This new-to-world neurotechnology can now be brought to market to save lives.

Innovation accelerates results

For innovation to achieve real impact, PA believes it needs to be viewed through a full lifecycle, end-to-end lens. Understanding the impact of potential changes across a complex system is imperative to secure a rapid return on innovation investment.

This approach was evidenced through PA’s work, in strategic partnership with Jacobs, for the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The PA and Jacobs team led a digital enterprise asset transformation journey within a highly regulated landscape. The team combined nuclear sector expertise alongside digital, data, organisational design, and people and change skills to rapidly transform NDA’s asset support capability, resulting in major savings for safety critical, regulated assets.

Diverse experts unlock opportunity

Diversity of expertise – from perspective to experience – leads to better ideas. To deliver innovative and effective solutions to previously unsolvable problems, organisations need the right blend of diverse experts in combination with emerging technologies.

In 2023, PA’s strategists, innovators, designers, consultants, digital experts, scientists, engineers, and technologists helped a wide range of clients, including the team at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. As one of the world’s busiest airports, moving over 72 million passengers a year, Schiphol needed a way to assess the carbon footprint of its technology and data. PA worked with their teams to discover how technology and data can help turn their ambition to be the world’s most sustainable airport into reality.

Progress through collaboration

PA’s team thrives on solving the most complex challenges, creating strategies, and leading transformations across organisations and industries. This involves bringing together different perspectives and stakeholders – regulators, the public sector, the private sector, start-ups, supply chains, the science community, and more – to unlock new value.

As part of PA’s new defence and security consortia, TeamProtect, it is collaborating with the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) to deliver CRENIC – a project that will keep soldiers safe from radio-controlled threats. The project has so far brought together 110 diverse and globally dispersed tech, innovation, and AI businesses into the same ecosystem – breaking down some of the traditional barriers around public sector procurement to fast-track innovation.

Celebrating Life at PA

PA’s people are its driving force, and the company offers exceptional career opportunities. As well as purpose-driven work, PA is committed to making the company a great place to work by creating a culture that’s collaborative, diverse, inclusive, and rewarding. In 2023, its vibrant inclusion networks continued to thrive.

Also in 2023, PA launched a new Digital Apprenticeship programme and a suite of AI Academy courses, to develop the skills, knowledge, and behaviours that support its people’s career development.

Support for local communities

PA people, and The PA Foundation, share a goal to develop and inspire people, particularly those facing disadvantage, to be the innovators and leaders of tomorrow. Over the past year, PA volunteers have continued to grow and support their local communities.

In the UK, PA volunteers helped support immigrants and refugees to gain employment, coached ex-prison offenders to help prepare them for future interviews, and even went back to school – getting involved with education initiatives that help break down limiting beliefs among disadvantaged students to inspire the young leaders of the future.

In the US, The PA Foundation worked with Upwardly global, providing mentoring to help eliminate employment barriers for immigrant and refugee professionals and advance the inclusion of their skills into the US economy. The PA Foundation also worked in the US with the Point Foundation, supporting LGBTQ students to achieve their full academic and leadership potential. In Denmark, The PA Foundation worked with Laer for Livet to strengthen the educational competencies of vulnerable children through supportive learning, enabling them to complete an upper secondary education.

Through the fantastic work of PA people, who volunteered over 21,000 hours of their time and expertise to support its charity partners in the last year, PA has amplified the work of The PA Foundation, which distributed £2 million in funding across the UK, US, Nordics, and Netherlands.

PA’s support of its local communities was recognised by the prestigious British Diversity Awards, which announced PA as winner of its Social Mobility Initiative of the Year in 2024. PA was also a silver award winner at the 2023 UK Social Mobility Awards.

Responsible business

PA is committed to working across industry to drive change and create lasting impact. In 2023, through a partnership with The Economist Educational Foundation, PA launched its new teaching workshop on plastics. With the Ministry of Defence UK Space Command, PA brought together academics, government stakeholders, the wider space industry, and sustainability experts to explore the challenges and opportunities for space to protect our planet. Throughout 2023, PA continued to uncover and accelerate ways to safeguard the planet securing it various industry awards for its expertise in sustainability.