UK Autumn Budget 2026: 5 priorities for professional services

The National Living Wage will rise by 3.9% to £13.21 an hour from 1 April 2027. The Budget also makes the 55p-per-mile tax-free rate for the first 10,000 business miles permanent and raises the rate above 10,000 miles from 25p to 35p from 6 April 2027. 

The impact will vary from firm to firm. For some, the wage increase may affect support and administrative roles more than their core consulting workforce. For others, travel expenses may be a more relevant consideration. 

The important thing is to understand where these changes could affect your cost base, rather than relying on last year’s assumptions. Can you see how workforce costs, travel expenses and project budgets fit together? And can you assess the impact before it starts affecting delivery margins? 

2. Know which projects are protecting your margins — and which aren’t 

In a professional services business, revenue alone doesn’t tell the whole story. A project can be bringing in income while quietly losing margin through overruns, unplanned work, write-offs or the wrong mix of resources. 

When costs and client expectations are changing, leaders need a clear view of project performance while there’s still time to act. That means looking beyond the overall financial result to understand what is happening across individual engagements. 

Ask yourself: can your teams see actual costs against forecasts as projects progress? Can you identify a margin problem early enough to do something about it? And can finance and delivery leaders work from the same picture? 

The Budget doesn’t answer these questions for you. But it is a timely prompt to check whether your current reporting gives you the information you need. 

3. Make forecasting a tool for decisions, not just reporting 

A forecast is most useful when it helps you decide what to do next. 

For professional services firms, that means connecting financial plans with the things that drive performance: project demand, resource availability, utilisation, billing milestones and expected costs. If those views sit in separate systems or spreadsheets, it can be difficult to understand the full impact of a change. 

What happens if a project starts later than expected? What if the cost of delivery rises? Do you have the capacity to take on new work without putting existing commitments at risk? 

Scenario planning can help you test these questions before making a decision. The aim isn’t to predict every outcome. It’s to understand your options and make decisions with greater confidence. 

4. Look for time and capacity you can give back to your people 

Alongside the Budget, the government announced plans to cut red tape and extend tariff relief, which it estimates could save businesses almost £800 million a year, with more than £600 million of that from reduced regulatory administration. That doesn’t mean every firm will see a direct saving, but it reinforces a question worth asking internally: how much time is your business losing to avoidable administration? 

In professional services, time spent chasing information, reconciling numbers or compiling project updates is time not spent on client work, developing relationships or helping the business make better decisions. Our recent UK research found that UK firms lose an estimated 8% of project revenue to inefficiency, and 85% have no unified, real-time view of their project data. 

Automation and AI may help reduce some of that work, but adding technology isn’t the answer on its own. If financial, project and workforce data are disconnected, teams can end up with more tools but no clearer view of the business. 

Start with the process. Where are people spending time on repetitive tasks? Where do delays make it harder to act? And what information would help them focus on higher-value work? 

5. Make every investment earn its place 

The Budget maintains the government’s Corporate Tax Roadmap commitments and avoids broad-based increases to the headline rates of income tax, National Insurance and VAT. That provides some continuity, but it doesn’t remove the need for careful investment decisions. 

For professional services leaders, technology investments should be judged by the problems they solve and the value they help create. Will an investment improve visibility into project performance? Help you plan resources more effectively? Reduce manual work? Give leaders a clearer view of future revenue and costs? 

AI is part of this conversation, but it shouldn’t be treated as a goal in itself. The strongest business case starts with a real operational need and a clear way to measure whether things have improved. 

That also means looking at the information and systems you already have. Better decisions often begin with connecting what you know about your finances, projects and people, and making that information useful to the people who need it. 

Turn the Budget into a reason to ask better questions 

No Budget can tell a professional services firm exactly what to do next. The right response will depend on your business model, clients, workforce and plans for growth. 

But this is a useful moment to test whether your business has the visibility it needs. Can you understand project profitability as work progresses? Can you see how changes in costs affect future performance? Can finance, project and operational leaders make decisions using the same information? 

For professional services firms, adapting to change isn’t just about reacting to the latest announcement. It’s about having the insight to understand what it means for your business, and the confidence to act. 

That’s where connected financial, project and workforce information can make a difference. When your people have a clearer view of the business, they’re better placed to protect margins, make informed decisions and focus their time where it creates the most value. 

The question to take into your next planning meeting is simple: do you have the visibility to see what needs to change before it affects your results?