Never a better time to look at professional services

If any evidence was needed for the continued rude health of the professional services sector in Ireland it came in the form of EY’s announcement of a significant expansion last month. The firm reported record levels of growth for its business on the island of Ireland, with revenues to the end of June 2022 up 26 per cent to €536 million, up from €425 million in the previous financial year. It also announced 900 net new jobs on the island of Ireland which will grow EY’s total employees to 5,100.

Some 550 of the positions will be for experienced hires while 350 will be filled by new university graduates. EY is recruiting candidates to fill a wide variety of roles across its core areas of tax, audit, corporate finance, and consulting as well as in new growth areas including technology consulting, digital and emerging technology, data analytics, cyber security, sustainability, law, strategy, and transformation. The firm is also recruiting heavily across other growth areas such as workforce and organisation design and planning, change management, transaction diligence, valuations, modelling and economics.

The legal sector is also experiencing strong growth. John Given is managing partner at KPMG Law, one of Ireland’s newest law firms and he sees robust growth in 2023 and beyond. He expects to grow the firm by up to 100 legal professionals in the next two to three years from its current number of approximately 60.

M&A sphere

Given cites areas such as ESG [environmental, social and corporate governance] renewables and technology as growth areas. “There are also opportunities in the corporate advisory and M&A sphere as well as in the areas of FS Regulatory and GDPR.”

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Given also points to tax, regulatory and commercial dispute resolution as other areas of growth and the firm is actively recruiting across the board in those fields.

For those mulling over a move during the Christmas holidays with a view to a new role in 2023, Given offers words of encouragement: “The variety available in terms of clients and types of work has never been greater and there’s an international dimension to an increasing number of exciting multijurisdictional assignments with an opportunity to work closely with professionals in other areas. Candidates should certainly bear such considerations in mind if they are thinking about making a change to a new, dynamic, and global environment.”