We covered this story in yesterday’s Monday Morning Accounting News Brief but it’s significant enough news to earn its own spot in a separate article as it’s a large market and involves a helluva lot of people.
We first saw this on Reddit a few days ago:
KPMG UK Audit layoffs
by u/Educational-West4131 in Big4
You may remember PwC UK doing a similar round of “voluntary” separations in 2023. Very similar, actually: PwC needed 600 people to leave and the firm blamed low attrition for the move. Here we are three years later and KPMG UK is making the same ask of hundreds of auditors.
Bloomberg had this to say in their story on Friday:
KPMG UK has told nearly 600 staffers in its audit business that their jobs are at risk, according to people familiar with the matter.
Impacted employees were informed that they could be laid off, subject to a redundancy consultation, according to a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg News. The company ultimately expects as many as 440 people will leave the business if the proposal goes ahead following that consultation process, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing non-public information.
Said the firm in a statement to Bberg: “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. This isn’t a decision we take lightly.”
KPMG UK’s total headcount is 16,739 as of October 2025. 600 people is about 6% of the audit workforce.
