Annual report 2018: Our awards

Delivering client value

We have been recognised for a range of outstanding client work at the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) awards, winning a total of five awards and three highly commended entries.

One of our newest business units has won a prestigious 2018 UK Legal 500 Award. Congratulations to the Insourced Solutions for Tax (IST) Team, who have won the in-house tax team of the year award following our groundbreaking deal with General Electric (GE).

Empowering our people

Jane Wainwright, PwC Director, won ‘Woman of the Year’ at the British Ex-Forces in Business Awards. Prior to joining our firm, Jane served 12 years in the British Army Intelligence Corps, where she undertook a number of roles in the world of counter terrorism, mostly serving in Northern Ireland, but also with a stint in the Falkland Islands.

For the eighth year running, we’ve been included in The Times Top 50 Employers for Women list, for our approach to workplace gender equality.

We're placed as one of the top 50 Best Places to Work in the UK for 2018 according to Glassdoor, being the only Big Four firm to be recognised.

Leading by example

Ella Walters, a manager in our Insurance Internal Audit team, has been recognised by ‘WeAreTheCity’ for her work developing the Internal Audit target operating model programme, and establishing a reverse mentoring initiative within our Insurance business.

Harjinder Kaur, a manager in our International Development practice, has been recognised by ‘WeAreTheCity’ for her leading work on gender, and engaging men and boys for gender equality.

Candidates from the firm took all three top places in the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)’s order of merit this year.

Our highest achievers and prize-winners have demonstrated their technical knowledge at an extremely high standard through a challenging exam process:

• Mihir Patel, Transaction Services, Advisory - First place and the Peat prize

• James Green, Banking & Capital Markets, Assurance - Second place and the Deloitte prize

• Katherine Fulton, Tax South-East - Third Place and the Fletcher prize

• Sarah Maidment, Tax South-East - Joint fifth place and the Frazer prize

• Benjamin Razis, London Top Tier, Assurance - Joint ninth place

• Jessica Thornton, Assurance West - Eleventh place

• Jordan Haworth, Tax - Joint fifteenth place

Our purpose

Sarah Churchman, Chief Inclusion & Wellbeing Officer, has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list for her work championing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She established a dedicated team 15 years ago and has led the effort to drive greater diversity across our firm.

Francesca Harris, Midlands New Business Development Manager, won the Barclays Diversity Champion award at the DIVA Awards. This award is given to stand-out individuals who consistently demonstrate their commitment to eradicating inequality and ensuring fairness within their workplace. She is a GLEE Ambassador and drove the programme throughout the Midlands to raise the support and awareness.

We are leading the rankings of professional services firms in this year’s Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. We are placed 33rd in the top 100 employers. Stonewall is the leading LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights organisation. Its Workplace Equality Index is an annual audit of workplace culture for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff.

Our commitment to enhancing the firm’s social impact and creating a more inclusive and diverse society has been recognised at the UK Social Enterprise Awards.

Our Buy Social campaign won the Market Builder award, while Brigade and Beyond Food were named as the Education, Training and Jobs Social Enterprise of the Year.

We’ve appeared on a new list released by Business in the Community, recognising UK employers who demonstrate best-practice workplace race equality and inclusion.

The unranked list of the top 65 public and private sector organisations was created following a recommendation in the McGregor-Smith Review into race in the workplace. It singles out employers who are creating inclusive workplace cultures for black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people and taking action in at least one of three areas - leadership, progression and recruitment.

Technology enabled

Our Management Consultancies Association (MCA) awards included #DisruptingUtilities, which won in the Innovation - new product/service (large) category, while our Tech and Investment team won for Women in Tech in the Best Integrated Campaign (large) category. 

For the second year running, we were named winners of International Accounting Bulletin’s prestigious ‘Audit Innovation of the Year’ award for our market-leading technology. 

We won this year’s award for GL.ai - a revolutionary bot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect anomalies in a company’s general ledger.