When you win a contract, you need people on the ground fast. The market doesn't have them. We build them to your spec, in your timeline.
THE CHALLENGE
Accenture's challenge isn't unique but at their scale, it's acute. As the world's largest technology consultancy, their ability to win and retain client contracts is directly tied to their ability to resource them. When they came to us, they had ambitious targets to hire thousands of techtech consultants across a multi-year period, with Java and Cloud Engineering representing the most critical and most candidate-short areas.Standard recruitment wasn't working. The traditional graduate pipeline was seasonal, inconsistent in quality, and producing a talent pool that was homogenous by default. Accenture had also made a firm public commitment to a 50:50 gender balance across the business a goal that the existing hiring model was structurally incapable of delivering.
They needed volume, quality, speed, and diversity. At the same time. Without compromise.
THE SOLUTION
We started with three immediate placements from our Open Programme proof of concept before a single line of the bespoke curriculum was written. Those placements landed well. The partnership deepened.
We then co-designed a 12-week training programme built specifically around Accenture's technical stack Java, React, Python, AWS, and Cloud and embedded their own aptitude testing, interview process, and four-day onboarding bootcamp directly into our curriculum. By the time tech consultants walked through the door, they already knew how Accenture worked.
Our in-house marketing team ran a co-branded attraction campaign targeting underrepresented demographics: female audiences, LGBTQIA+ job boards, non-biased language frameworks across all copy. The result was over 1,000 applications in four weeks with minimal dropout risk because every candidate had self-selected into a role they knew was waiting for them.
We are now Accenture's preferred vendor on the basis of Social Value, with ongoing cohort deployments across the UK including their Advanced Technology Centre in Newcastle.
IMPACT
Commercially, tech consultants were trained and ready before Accenture incurred a single pound of onboarding or salary cost. The partnership has also driven a broader review of how Accenture manages the relationship between their engineering Line Managers and Talent Acquisition a structural improvement that extends well beyond this programme.
WHAT THE CLIENT SAID
“The partnership has led to a review of our internal processes when it comes to junior and graduate recruitment — it's opened up a new opportunity to smooth out hiring between Line Managers in tech and Talent Managers in procurement.”
— Accenture Hiring Lead