Risk and regulatory work is the fastest growing consulting service in the UK, breaking the £500m mark for the first time.

Helping organisations comply with regulations, address cyber threats, and manage the fall-out from corporate scandals has led to double-digit growth in risk and regulatory consulting – up 11.8% to £507million in 2015, according to figures from Source Global Research. Cyber security in particular is having a considerable impact on the figures, with some consulting firms telling Source they hit 40% growth in this type of work last year.

In particular, those industries with heavy regulations, such as financial services and pharma, are driving a lot of compliance work for consulting firms. A managing director from the financial services sector explained to the Source authors why Big Four firms are favoured for helping with this compliance work: “Sometimes we’re engaging consultants as a result of a direct suggestion from the regulators, who might tell us that we need to go out and get an independent view on X, Y, or Z. We’ll definitely go to a name-brand firm in that case so we can show the regulator that we’ve been responsive and engaged the right people.”

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