Deloitte chief pay rises as UK partnership overhaul cuts jobs and reshapes profit shares

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Deloitte chief pay & partnership overhaul

Highlights

Houston receives a £5.8 million profit share for the 12 months to May 2026 plus a £1.3 million one-off award, making him the best-paid UK Big Four boss.
Deloitte boosts Houston’s remuneration by 45 percent for 2025-26, lifting his pay to 93 times the median employee after cutting 1,000 UK jobs last year.
Project Maple restructures partnership, lowering new equity partner units to 80 and increasing equity partners to nearly 60 percent of the partnership, up from 54 percent in 2025.

Pay rise follows restructuring and filing disclosure

As reported by the Financial Times, company filings show Houston receives a £5.8 million share of profits for the 12 months to May 2026, plus a £1.3 million one-off award tied to strategic and financial targets linked to his work across Deloitte’s wider European operations.

Houston, who leads Deloitte UK from 2019 before being promoted in June, now heads a new entity overseeing the firm’s operations in 80 countries after a restructuring he spearheads. His total payout makes him the best-paid UK boss among the Big Four, ahead of PwC UK and Middle East chief Marco Amitrano, who is paid £4.8 million in the 12 months to June 2026.

The increase lifts Houston’s remuneration to 93 times Deloitte’s median UK employee pay in its latest financial year, up from 65 times a year earlier and 35 times in 2021. His pay was £2.9 million in 2021 and £4.9 million in 2025, placing him among the world’s highest-paid consultants.

Partnership changes deepen tensions across the sector

Deloitte’s 45 per cent pay rise for Houston in the 2025-26 financial year comes after the firm cuts 1,000 UK jobs last year and reviews its partnership structure under a project codenamed Project Maple. The overhaul aims to rebalance the firm away from a large group of salaried partners and toward a broader base of equity partners who share in ownership and profits.

Under the revised approach, new Deloitte equity partners receive 80 units instead of the traditional 100, according to people familiar with the matter. The unit value fluctuates with profit and is combined with individual performance to determine partner pay.

The firm also seeks to convert more salaried partners into equity partners, with equity partners now making up almost 60 per cent of the wider partnership, up from 54 per cent in 2025. Executives and former insiders say the change is meant to address frustration among salaried partners who hold the title without owning a stake, an issue that has also created tension at KPMG and EY as firms rethink how profits are shared.

Our earlier coverage of executive pay trends in South Africa’s JSE Top 200 highlighted a sharp rise in variable compensation, with short- and long-term incentives for CEOs and CFOs climbing much faster than base pay. We also noted that new Companies Act requirements from May 2026 increase scrutiny by mandating disclosure of top-vs-lowest pay ratios and introducing binding shareholder votes on remuneration.

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