Accenture swoops for UK start-up Faculty amid AI services pivot
Artificial intelligence company Faculty will join Accenture, in a deal valuing the UK start-up at more than $1 billion. The move comes as the wider consulting market continues to push its clients to adopt AI tools.
Accenture has been focusing on a major overhaul of its focus in recent months – pivoting its offering toward helping businesses make the most of their investments in AI. Globally, Accenture remains committed to a huge campaign of both ‘exiting’ and hiring talent, along the lines of whether the firm feels someone can adapt to using artificial intelligence in their work.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Accenture’s approximately 15,000 staff are now presided over by Matt Prebble. Further illustrating the firm’s push to be seen as ‘AI-first’, the 25-year Accenture veteran previously led the firm’s data and AI business across Europe, Africa and the Middle East – a team with “the collective mission to help clients transform using data, analytics and artificial intelligence”, according to a release from the firm.
As 2026 gets underway, Accenture has sought to super-charge the shift of its operations – in the UK and further afield – with the acquisition of Faculty. Upon closing of the transaction, Faculty’s team of more than 400 data scientists, AI engineers and other team members will integrate with Accenture’s teams. Meanwhile, Faculty’s chief executive Marc Warner, previously a member of the AI Council that advised the UK government, will join Accenture’s global management committee.
Julie Sweet, global chair and CEO of Accenture, said of the news, “I’m pleased to welcome the Faculty team to Accenture and look forward to Marc’s contribution shaping our technology vision and strategy as chief technology officer."
Accenture believes the move will help to “scale world‑class AI capabilities for clients”, with Sweet adding that the deal enables the firm to “further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses”. This will include access to partner solutions and Faculty Frontier – Faculty’s enterprise decision intelligence product – and Faculty’s Fellowship Program; an early career training and placement programme that helps STEM graduates and post-doctoral researchers transition from academia to industry.
Unicorn status
Faculty CEO Warner noted, “Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity. We have spent the last ten years supporting our clients to bring this world about, step by step. As AI advances rapidly, the ambition of our clients is now, rightly, no less than the reinvention of their business. I am delighted that by teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, the Financial Times reported that two of Faculty’s investors, Apax Digital and Mercuri, said the deal granted the company “unicorn” status – which broadly defines a technology start-up as being valued at more than $1 billion (£740 million).
Founded in 2014 by physics researchers Warner and Angie Ma, alongside Andrew Brookes, a former software engineer at BlackRock and Ocado, Faculty was previously named Advanced Skills Initiative. It has raised more than £40 million from investors, including Apax Digital Fund, LocalGlobe and Mercuri. As recently found by a Consultancy.uk analysis, however, unicorn status is no guarantee that early losses will turn to profit for any much-hyped young company – with only one-third of 2015’s top European unicorns managing that a decade later. And while Faculty recently reported a 29% rise in revenues to £41.7 million for the 12 months to March 2025, that still translated to a pre-tax loss of £3.8 million.
