Accenture has revealed it will expand its UK workforce with 3,000 new roles over the next three years, as the company’s clients aim to capitalise on growth while the UK is recovering from the pandemic.

Half of the new roles will be based outside of London, expanding the company’s presence in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and adding to its existing UK workforce of around 11,000 people.

The company said that the new roles are being driven by increased client demand for services in platforms, cloud engineering, cyber security, and data and intelligent operations.

The UK economy is rebounding swiftly following the pandemic and Accenture is seeing strong demand from clients seeking to capitalise on this growth opportunity, said Simon Eaves, market unit lead at Accenture in the UK and Ireland. 

“We are committed to growing our footprint across the UK which is why I am particularly excited about our plans across Scotland and northern England where we see some of the best technology talent in the country,” added Eaves.

Accenture’s initiative to create thousands of new cyber security roles over the next three years has been called “promising” by John Fokker, head of cyber investigations for McAfee Enterprise’s Advanced Threat Research team.

Fokker said this will help raise awareness of the skills needed to succeed in a cyber security role and help the industry take a step towards closing the cyber security skills gap.

“This will be particularly important in bolstering security teams when things get busy, with our research telling us that 75% of organisations struggle to maintain a fully staffed security team during peak periods,” he said.

Accenture’s move to create new jobs has been welcomed by the UK government, with digital secretary Nadine Dorries saying it was fantastic to see Accenture creating thousands of new high-skilled jobs in a number of the UK’s regional tech hubs. 

Dorries added that the investment is testament to the UK’s global reputation for innovation and talent and underlined the government is determined to level up opportunity across the country and is investing in digital skills and infrastructure so businesses can thrive.