Major milestone for chartered management consultant award
As the Chartered Management Consultant Award continues to gain traction, it has announced another major milestone. Big Four firm KPMG will now offer the award to all its graduate and apprentice appointments, as part of the firm’s learning and development programme.
One area the UK consulting sector has traditionally come in for criticism in, is its perceived lack of quality control and standardisation. With the number of independent operators continuing to rise, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has been partnering with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) to roll out a new qualification, to assure clients they are getting value for money from the sector.
Since 2017, the MCA and CMI have steadily been working to roll out the Chartered Management Consultant Award (ChMC). Since the launch of the new professional accreditation, demand for the ChMC has gone from strength to strength – as firms recognise it as a differentiating mark of quality that can help assure current and future clients of their offering. As such, by May 2022 more than 3,000 consultants were already on path to obtaining chartered status. This has grown by more than 1,000 in the year since.
Now, the ChMC has celebrated another key milestone, with the news that KPMG’s UK wing has adopted the qualification as part of its learning and development programme. The advisory and accounting giant will onboard some 200 graduates and apprentices within its consulting practice through 2023 – and every one of them will now be given the option to work towards chartered status from their very first year at the firm.
David Rowlands, Head of Consulting at KPMG UK, remarked, "Learning and development is critical for consultants at every stage in their careers. When we continuously up our game, our clients get the best results. ChMC provides a framework which recognises the rainbow of talent and skills needed in consultancy, raising the standards of our profession and giving clients further confidence in the abilities and experience of the consultants they work with.”
KPMG joins a growing list of leading consultancies to have taken up the ChMC. It is the third of the Big Four firms to do so, alongside EY and PwC, which also automatically offer the ChMC course to all their graduate and apprentice intake. Other firms include IBM Consulting, Arup, Moorhouse, Arcadis and PA Consulting – which has already has seen 50 professionals achieve chartered status – along with many other leading smaller firms.
Tamzen Isacsson, Chief Executive of the MCA, commented, "This announcement presents a terrific opportunity for the next generation of consultants entering our industry to be given a professional career journey and to achieve Chartered Status as a management consultant. KPMG's strong commitment to CHMC underscores its commitment to its people and high standards of training and development."
