Yorkshire Audit Team Celebrate Rapid Growth

2018 has been a bumper year for Armstrong Watson’s Yorkshire Audit team, with significant growth across the service line, including a raft of new appointments, major new business wins and a growth in fees of over 25%.

The Yorkshire team – based across Leeds, Skipton and Northallerton – now stands at 32 strong, with 10 new team members welcomed to the region in the past 12 months.

2018 also saw the firm’s Yorkshire team take on 5 graduate trainees alongside the promotion of 10 audit colleagues, including Rhys Davies who became a Senior Manager covering both the Skipton and Leeds offices.

Amongst those who started with the Yorkshire firm was Simon Turner, who joined Armstrong Watson from KPMG as Audit and Assurance Director, leading the firm’s North Yorkshire audit team.

Commenting on his appointment, Simon Turner said,

“I have been incredibly fortunate to join a firm whose ambition and growth plans are self-evident. The investment Armstrong Watson has made, and continues to make in talent across the firm, clearly demonstrates our commitment to being the best we can be in our chosen markets. This strength of team enables us to invest more time and expertise in our clients and prospects; giving both great service and an alternative to the traditional accountancy firms in the region.”

Armstrong Watson’s commitment to the development of its people was further demonstrated last month when the firm was ranked by the AAT as one of the top 5 SME accountancy firms in the UK with which to launch an accounting career.

With the capability and capacity to service the needs of a larger number of increasingly complex and sophisticated businesses, the firm’s audit team has also seen an impressive growth in the number of new instructions, with major wins including The Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, Harris Construction, Yorkshire Linen and Peter Duffy Limited, resulting in significant growth for the Yorkshire audit team, with a net £500K increase in fees over the past 12 months.

Armstrong Watson attribute this success to their unique position within the Yorkshire market - combining their scale and capability with a reputation for working proactively and collaboratively with their clients, supporting, advising and protecting businesses and their owners throughout the business lifecycle.

Matt Osbourne, Yorkshire Audit and Assurance Partner said,

“The audit market is changing. We’re speaking to an increasing number of high quality, highly profitable entrepreneurial businesses that are feeling unloved, undervalued and overcharged by their existing advisors. Those same businesses are responding extremely positively to our proposition, which combines the quality, scale and expertise they’ve become accustomed to, with a more pro-active, collaborative and commercial approach. This isn’t rocket science. It’s simply a case of high quality, passionate and highly engaged people taking the time to properly understand their clients’ needs.”