22 consulting firms nominated for Education Investor Awards

Twenty-two consulting firms across four categories have been nominated for the 2017 edition of the EducationInvestor Awards. The winners will be announced at an official dinner in December.

The EducationInvestor Awards are an annual ceremony to promote excellence and recognise innovation in the business of education. Following the announcement of the shortlist, which has seen 22 consulting firms nominated for their work in the sector, the organisation’s judges will have until December 5th 2017 to select groups and individuals that have made an outstanding contribution to education as outright winners. The victorious candidates will then be presented with their awards during a dinner taking place at the Park Lane Hotel in London, with over 700 guests in attendance.

Of the five categories, two have sub-sections specifically dedicated to the consulting and professional services industries. Within the advisory and finance category, awards will be designated for consultants to educational institutions, consultants to the private sector, and financial advisors. Meanwhile in the education property category, an award for best education property consultant will be handed out.

Last year’s winning Consultants to the Private Sector nominee Cairneagle Associates return in 2017, with nominations for that same award along with the Consultants for Educational Institutions prize. They are joined in both categories by Big Four consultancy Deloitte, last year’s Educational Institutions winner Parthenon-EY, and London-based Shiftlearning. Carfax, whose Private Tutors service is also up for the Private Tutoring Companies gong, make up the remainder of the private sector consulting nominees, along with Yorkshire social care and education consultancy Pivot. Michael Smith, Pivot’s managing director, said of the nomination, “Our overarching aim is to work with education providers and support them to improve, by developing good practice and challenging what needs to change, through the provision of a broad range of flexible, objective, carefully planned, relevant school improvement services."

In the Consultants in the Private Sector category meanwhile, Cairneagle, Deloitte, Shift Learning and Parthenon-EY were joined by fellow Big Four rival PwC, CIL Management Consultants, PMSI International, and Colliers International, who are also hoping to retain the Education Property Consultants award they obtained in 2016.

The Financial Advisors category is meanwhile to be contested by the ASA Group (formerly Adam Street), Clearwater International, European financial advisory DC Advisory, Quayle Munro Private Finance and QMPF – who were also listed in the Education Property Consulting sub-section – and Grant Thornton UK, the British arm of the world’s seventh largest professional services network.

Finally, the EducationInvestor shortlist named the firms to contest the Education Property Consultant award. Along with Colliers and QMPF, construction services firm Arcadis, holistic development advisory Currie & Brown, project management group Faithful + Gould, property consultancies Gerald Eve and Lambert Smith Hampton, and chartered surveyors Aitchison Rafferty all made the grade.

Philip Waite, Group Director and Head of Education commented, “To be shortlisted in the EducationInvestor Awards reflects all the hard work and dedication our expert property team puts into their work each day.  It shows the strength and commitment of the team, and the exciting client work we are involved with.  It is wonderful that our efforts have been recognised.”