Professional and legal services

A&O Shearman was formed in 2024 via the merger of two historic firms, Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. A&O Shearman Belfast opened in 2011. It is the second largest office in the A&O Shearman network, employing approximately 700 people. It includes a Support Service Centre which delivers business services – Document & Design, Finance, Human Resources, IT, Library & Information and Marketing & Business Development - to the firm’s global network. The global hub for IT support is based in Belfast, operating a 24/7 service model. A&O Shearman Belfast is also at the forefront of delivering legal services to clients in new and flexible ways, with proportionate lower-cost, tech enabled resourcing and end-to-end managed legal services.  It forms part of Advanced Delivery & Solutions, which also sees specialist consultancy and strategic advisory services offered from Belfast. 

Established in October 2014 and now employing 400 people, Baker McKenzie's Global Service Centre in Belfast works with centres in Manila, Tampa and Buenos Aires to provide a range of business and legal services in support of colleagues and clients around the World. The Belfast centre is home to a range of high performing teams, delivering the highest quality of services using best in class technology.

Deloitte Belfast is one of Deloitte’s largest UK offices outside London. They currently employ over 1,000 staff across a range of disciplines in tax, audit and consulting.  In 2011 the company made a significant investment by establishing their Belfast Delivery Centre to deliver specialist digital services.  The centre now employs over 800 people and is a leading R&D centre for data analytics, cloud services, robotics and cyber security.  To ensure a long-term, sustainable pipeline of talent, the company uses highly innovative approaches to talent development including Higher Level Apprenticeships and DfE funded Assured Skills Academies.

Factor is the leader in next-generation solutions for complex legal work at scale. Factor combines the expert lawyers, market know-how and experience of traditional law with the process efficiency, smart legal technology and data-driven project management of New Law to bridge a huge gap in the market. Belfast is a Factor Centre of Excellence, employing a team of c200 lawyers, legal specialists, technologists, and process consultants, servicing a range of global clients including the world’s leading banks and Fortune/FTSE 100 companies. The Belfast centre has become a hub for regulatory response and compliance engagements, as well as in commercial contracting engagements across the life sciences sector, derivative documentation in the banking sector and due diligence in M&A.

Herbert Smith Freehills opened its Belfast office in 2011 – the first UK-based, near-shore operation to be launched by an international law firm. The office now employs over 200 legal analysts, lawyers and technologists, and operates as part of the firm’s global Alternative Legal Services (ALT) business. In collaboration with colleagues across ALT’s global network, the multi-disciplinary team in Belfast offers a range of legal and technology solutions for data-intensive, defined-process work across a number of practice areas – including Disputes, Corporate, Employment, Finance and Real Estate. As a fully-integrated part of Herbert Smith Freehills, the Belfast team is able to deliver end-to-end and risk-wrapped services to clients across a variety of industry sectors. It has particular expertise and experience in the Banking and Financial Services, Energy, Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT), Real Estate, Wealth & Asset Management and Consumer sectors.

PA Consulting (PA), the consultancy that’s bringing ingenuity to life, expanded into Northern Ireland in 2018. Combining world-class capabilities and deep sector expertise, PA works globally across the public and private sectors to spot new opportunities and take clients further, faster. PA’s Belfast team provides end-to-end digital expertise including digital strategy and design, DevOps, data analytics, security and automated intelligence to help clients adapt and transform in an era of disruptive change.

PwC in Northern Ireland is PwC UK’s fastest-growing UK region and its largest regional office outside London. This growth was accelerated by the success of the firm's innovative operational delivery division, Operate.  PwC employs 2,300 people in NI and will be moving in the summer of 2021 into new headquarters in the heart of Belfast city centre, which will accommodate up to 3,000 people. The PwC office in Belfast is a global centre for technology and, with its new digital Frontier space opening in Merchant Square, it'll bring clients together with its experts to drive creativity and collaboration, solving problems and creating sustainable innovation.