How to Apply to Grant Thornton

15 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 29 open positions

Key Takeaways

  • Grant Thornton UK LLP is a Cinven-backed UK Top 6 audit, tax and advisory firm with around 5,000 to 5,500 people, more than 200 partners, and £724 million in net revenue (FY24, +11% YoY) — separate from the New Mountain-backed Grant Thornton US.
  • All UK applications run through Workday Recruiting at ukgrantt.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com under the CareersGrantThornton site — not Oracle HCM as some external data sources state.
  • Early-careers programmes use a four-stage process: online assessment, written case study, group exercise, and final partner interview. Experienced-hire roles use one or two competency-plus-technical interviews.
  • The firm publishes seven competencies (Analytical thinking, Co-creator, Driven to succeed, Effective communication, Growth mindset, Relationship builder, Self management) and three values (Purposefully driven, Actively curious, Candid but kind, plus Ethics) — they are tested by name.
  • The firm uses STARR + Reflections (Situation, Task, Action, Results, Reflections) as its competency answer framework — the Reflections step is a genuine differentiator that most candidates skip.
  • Grant Thornton has published explicit AI use guidelines for applicants — research and structuring is fine, copy-pasting answers and dual-screening live interviews is grounds for rejection.
  • Tailor your CV to UK accountancy norms (UK English, two pages max, ACA/ACCA/CTA terminology, sterling figures, ISA UK / FRS 102 / IFRS references) and answer the Workday right-to-work questions truthfully — they are a hard filter.

About Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton UK LLP is a UK Top 6 professional services firm offering audit and assurance, tax, and advisory services from a London headquarters at 30 Finsbury Square and around 30 offices nationwide. The UK practice is led by CEO Malcolm Gomersall (in post since January 2024) and comprises more than 200 partners and over 5,000 people, with the early-careers site quoting a current headcount of approximately 5,500. Net revenue reached £724 million in financial year 2024, up 11% from £654 million the year before — the firm's stated ambition is to push past £1 billion in the coming years. A point of confusion worth clearing up immediately: 'Grant Thornton' is not a single global company. The UK firm is a member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL), which is a network of around 76,000 people across 150+ markets, but each member firm is a separate legal entity. That distinction matters in 2026 because two enormous transactions have reshaped the brand. New Mountain Capital, a US private equity firm, acquired the majority of Grant Thornton US in 2024 — and Cinven, one of Europe's largest private equity firms, took a strategic investment in Grant Thornton UK LLP that completed at the end of Q1 2025 after a unanimous partnership vote. The UK and US deals are entirely separate; you are joining the Cinven-backed UK firm, not the US one. There is also a small structural quirk: the partnership operates as two LLPs in the UK, Grant Thornton UK LLP (audit) and Grant Thornton UK Advisory & Tax LLP (the non-audit services), which sit alongside each other for regulatory independence reasons. Honest framing on where Grant Thornton sits in the market. It is not a Big 4 firm — it does not have the headcount, geographic footprint, or audit market share of Deloitte, PwC, EY or KPMG. It is also not a regional or boutique firm. It sits in the genuine middle tier of UK accountancy alongside BDO and Mazars/Forvis Mazars, competing for the listed-but-not-FTSE-100 audit work, mid-market M&A advisory, and the entire UK private company ecosystem that the Big 4 increasingly cannot or will not serve cost-effectively. The trade-off for joining is well understood: you typically get earlier client exposure, a less rigid grade pyramid, and a more visible internal profile than at a Big 4, in exchange for slightly smaller training intakes per cohort, a less prestigious external brand outside the accountancy world, and historically lower (though closing) starting salaries. The Cinven deal is explicitly aimed at narrowing those gaps through technology investment, lateral partner hires (the firm has said it intends to add around 160 partners over two years), and capacity expansion. The service line split is the same one you should know cold for any interview: Audit & Assurance (around 26 of the current open experienced roles), Tax (40 — the largest open requisition group at the time of writing), Deals Advisory & Consulting (18), Large & Complex Advisory, plus Insolvency / Forensics / Restructuring under the Risk & Regulation umbrella, and Central Client Services that supports the firm itself. Audit is the engine of the trainee intake; Tax is the engine of the experienced-hire intake; Restructuring is the historically strongest brand specialism, and Forensics and Government & Public Sector are growing fast. Awards-wise, Grant Thornton appears regularly in the GTI Top 10 Graduate Employer (Accounting & Finance), GTI Top 10 School Leaver Employer (Accounting), came in at #3 on the 2024 Social Mobility Employer Index, holds Stonewall LGBTQ+ Inclusive Employer status, and is a Disability Confident Leader — the early-careers brand is genuinely strong even where the experienced-hire brand is quieter.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Use the canonical UK careers site at grantthornton

    Use the canonical UK careers site at grantthornton.co.uk/careers — search separately for early careers (graduate, apprentice, school leaver, internship, placement) versus experienced professionals. Filter by service line (Audit, Tax, Advisory, Restructuring, Forensics, Technology Risk, Outsourcing) and by office, because Grant Thornton has roughly 30 UK offices and you will be expected to commit to one as your home base even in a hybrid model.

  2. 2
    All applications route through Workday

    All applications route through Workday — when you click Apply, you will be taken to ukgrantt.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com under the CareersGrantThornton site. Create one Workday profile and reuse it. The first time you apply, complete the profile fully, including the work eligibility section, because Workday's screening rules will silently filter out applications that are missing right-to-work answers regardless of how strong your CV is.

  3. 3
    For experienced-hire roles, the form itself is short

    For experienced-hire roles, the form itself is short — the careers team has deliberately stripped it back to about 20 minutes of typing — but it does require you to upload a CV, answer right-to-work and reasonable adjustments questions, and write a short motivational statement. Tailor the motivational statement to the specific service line and, ideally, to the named team or sector if the job description mentions one (for example, Financial Services Audit, Public Sector Internal Audit, Restructuring TIC).

  4. 4
    For graduate, apprentice, and placement programmes, the assessed process has fou

    For graduate, apprentice, and placement programmes, the assessed process has four published stages: (1) an online assessment focused on situational judgement and numerical / verbal reasoning; (2) a written case study where you analyse a business scenario in your own words; (3) a group exercise observing how you collaborate; and (4) a final-round interview with a partner or director. Strengths-based questioning is woven through these stages, and the firm does not publish whether they currently use Cappfinity, SHL, or Arctic Shores by name — assume any of the three.

  5. 5
    For experienced-hire roles, the published process is one or two interview stages

    For experienced-hire roles, the published process is one or two interview stages depending on level. Stage one is normally a competency interview with the hiring manager covering the firm's values (Purposefully driven, Actively curious, Candid but kind) plus role-relevant technical questions. Stage two, where used, is typically with a partner and is a deeper conversation about commercial judgement, client-handling examples, and cultural fit. There is no formal case study at experienced level for most roles, although Restructuring, Forensics, and Deals Advisory may include a technical exercise.

  6. 6
    Reasonable adjustments and the positive action scheme are genuinely available, n

    Reasonable adjustments and the positive action scheme are genuinely available, not boilerplate. You can request them at any stage by emailing [email protected] (early careers) or by speaking to the recruiter named on your application (experienced). The firm is a Disability Confident Leader, works with the Business Disability Forum, and offers enhanced coaching during the application process for candidates who opt into the positive action scheme.

  7. 7
    Read Grant Thornton's published guidance on AI use during applications before yo

    Read Grant Thornton's published guidance on AI use during applications before you write anything. The firm explicitly permits AI for research, generating mock interview questions, structuring your own examples, and proofreading your written assessments. It explicitly prohibits copy-pasting AI-generated answers, dual-screening AI during live interviews, fabricating responses, sharing private firm information with public AI tools, and recording or transcribing interviews without consent. Breaches are treated as a values failure and will end your candidacy.

  8. 8
    Expect realistic timelines

    Expect realistic timelines. Early-careers cycles for the September intake typically open in late summer of the previous year and run on a rolling basis until programmes fill, so applying in autumn / early winter rather than spring is materially better. Experienced hires move faster — most progress from application to offer within three to five weeks, with the busy season slowdown (January to April for audit, late summer for tax compliance) being the only meaningful exception.


Resume Tips for Grant Thornton

recommended

Use a UK CV format, not a US résumé

Use a UK CV format, not a US résumé. Two pages maximum for experienced hires, one page for trainees. Include a personal profile / summary at the top of three to four lines, a clear education section (degree class matters — typically a 2:1 minimum is benchmarked, although the firm explicitly states academics are not the only thing they look at), a chronological work history, and a short interests / additional information section. Do not use photos, do not include date of birth, and do not list reference details on the document itself — 'References available on request' is acceptable.

recommended

Write British English and use UK accountancy terminology

Write British English and use UK accountancy terminology. 'CA / ACA / ACCA / CIMA / CTA / ATT / CFAB' are the qualifications that matter; spell them out the first time. Use 'audit' rather than 'auditing', 'finalised' not 'finalized', and 'organisation' not 'organization'. Localise dates to DD MMM YYYY. The Workday parser handles British English fine but partner reviewers will notice unintentional Americanisms.

recommended

Quantify in pounds sterling and reference UK regulatory frameworks where relevan

Quantify in pounds sterling and reference UK regulatory frameworks where relevant. For audit roles, mention ISA (UK), FRS 102 / IFRS, materiality calculations, work paper review hours, and the size and sector of clients you led on. For tax roles, reference HMRC, CT600, P11D, R&D claims, transfer pricing, VAT, MTD, and the specific tax regimes you have worked under. For advisory and restructuring, quantify deal sizes, recoveries, hours saved, or controls remediated.

recommended

Lead each bullet with the action and the outcome, not the process

Lead each bullet with the action and the outcome, not the process. 'Led the FY24 audit of a £180m turnover Lloyd's market insurance broker, identifying three control deficiencies that triggered a Section 166 review' is far stronger than 'Responsible for assisting with audit fieldwork on a Lloyd's market client'. Grant Thornton's reviewers are practitioners and will skim past process language.

recommended

Map your experience to the firm's seven published competencies — Analytical thin

Map your experience to the firm's seven published competencies — Analytical thinking, Co-creator, Driven to succeed, Effective communication, Growth mindset, Relationship builder, and Self management. You do not need a bullet for every competency, but the strongest CVs surface evidence for at least four of them across the work and education sections. Use language that mirrors the competency names where it is honest to do so.

recommended

Include ATS-relevant keywords from the job description verbatim where they descr

Include ATS-relevant keywords from the job description verbatim where they describe things you have actually done. Workday's CXS search ranks by exact-string match within the job posting against your profile fields, so if the role says 'Phenom data analytics' or 'TeamMate AM' or 'Caseware', use those exact strings rather than paraphrases. Do not stuff keywords you cannot defend in interview.

recommended

Save your CV as a PDF unless the application explicitly asks for

Save your CV as a PDF unless the application explicitly asks for .docx. Use a single column, no tables, no text in headers or footers, and no graphics — the Workday CXS resume parser handles single-column structured PDFs cleanly but mangles two-column 'designer' templates and silently drops content that lives inside header / footer regions.

recommended

For the motivational statement section of the Workday application, write 200 to

For the motivational statement section of the Workday application, write 200 to 300 words that explicitly answer three things: why this service line, why Grant Thornton specifically rather than a Big 4 or a smaller firm, and what you bring to the team. The single most common rejection reason from internal recruiters is generic statements that read identically to a Deloitte, PwC, or KPMG application — name something concrete the firm has done recently, such as the Cinven investment, the Disability Confident Leader status, the Restructuring practice's market position, or a sector publication you have read.



Interview Culture

Grant Thornton's interview culture sits deliberately between Big 4 formality and boutique-firm intimacy.

The firm's three values — Purposefully driven, Actively curious, and Candid but kind — appear by name in nearly every competency interview, so you should be able to give a clean two-minute story for each value before you walk in. The fourth, less-publicised pillar partners often probe is Ethics, particularly for audit and forensics roles; expect at least one scenario question about a moment you had to challenge a manager, push back on a client, or own a mistake. The published structure for early-careers candidates is the four-stage funnel of online assessment, written case study, group exercise, and final-round partner interview. The online assessment is a strengths-and-judgement style instrument with situational and numerical reasoning sections — practise on standard tools like Cappfinity, SHL Verify, and Arctic Shores test pools, because the firm's assessment provider is not publicly disclosed and they have used multiple over the years. The written case study is roughly 45 minutes against a fictional client scenario where you have to identify the issue, weigh options, and write a structured recommendation in your own words. Use a STARR-friendly structure even in writing — the firm explicitly teaches Situation, Task, Action, Results, and Reflections as their preferred answer framework, and the 'Reflections' fifth step is a genuine differentiator they look for. Skipping the reflection is the single most common reason candidates with otherwise solid examples are downgraded. The group exercise tests collaboration, not dominance — the assessors are watching whether you create space for quieter voices, build on others' ideas using the 'Co-creator' competency language, and stay candid but kind during disagreement. The final-round interview is normally with a partner or senior director and lasts 45 to 60 minutes, mixing values-based competency questions with light technical questions appropriate to the programme. For experienced hires, the structure is leaner: one or two interview stages. Stage one is typically a 60-minute conversation with the hiring manager combining values-based competency questions with technical questions specific to the role (audit methodology and ISA UK for assurance, technical tax knowledge and HMRC interaction examples for tax, deal experience and commercial judgement for advisory). Where a stage two exists, it is normally a 45-minute partner interview that is more conversational and focused on cultural fit, longer-term ambition, and commercial judgement on a real or hypothetical client situation. Some specialist roles in Restructuring, Forensics, Deals Advisory, and Technology Risk include a short technical exercise that you would be told about in advance. Dress is business formal for partner interviews and smart business for early stages — the firm has not formally moved to a 'dress for your day' Big 4 stance, and erring on the formal side signals that you understand client-facing professional services norms. Partners will often spend the first five minutes asking what you have read about the firm recently. Have something specific ready — the Cinven investment, the firm's response to the BDO and Forvis Mazars audit reform discussion, the latest ESG reporting publication, or a sector-specific Spotlight from the Insights pages. Be honest about busy season. The firm does not pretend it is a 9-to-5 environment. Audit busy season runs January through April for the bulk of the calendar-year-end client base, with secondary peaks in July (June year-end public sector) and October (September year-end). Tax compliance has its own 31 January self-assessment crunch and 31 July payments-on-account peak. A candidate who acknowledges this and has a coherent story about how they manage workload is more credible than one who claims they thrive on infinite hours.

What Grant Thornton Looks For

  • Evidence of all three named values in your work history — Purposefully driven, Actively curious, and Candid but kind. Concrete moments, not adjectives. The 'Candid but kind' value in particular is tested by stories where you challenged a peer, manager, or client and the relationship was stronger afterwards.
  • Demonstrated commercial awareness, defined as understanding how a client makes money, who their customers are, what regulators they answer to, and what is genuinely keeping their CFO awake at night. Read the Financial Times, Accountancy Daily, and the firm's Insights pages for at least two weeks before any interview. Bring a current view on something happening in the client's sector.
  • All seven published competencies surfacing across your application: Analytical thinking, Co-creator, Driven to succeed, Effective communication, Growth mindset, Relationship builder, and Self management. Strongest candidates can give a STARR + Reflections example for each and can name which competency they are demonstrating without being prompted.
  • A clear and credible reason for choosing Grant Thornton rather than a Big 4. Generic 'I want a smaller firm with bigger client exposure' answers are heard hundreds of times per cycle and do not differentiate you. Strong answers reference the firm's specific service-line strengths (mid-market M&A, restructuring, public sector, financial services audit), the Cinven-backed growth plan, the partnership culture, or a specific team or partner whose work you have followed.
  • Cultural fit with a partnership model. Unlike a typical corporate, Grant Thornton's senior leadership are partners (more than 200 of them) who are jointly liable for the firm's performance, and their decision style is collegial rather than top-down. Candidates who frame themselves as collaborative co-owners rather than instructed employees land better in partner interviews.
  • Resilience under deadline pressure, told honestly. Audit busy season, tax compliance deadlines, restructuring formal appointments, and forensic litigation timetables are not optional. Examples that show you have delivered under genuine time pressure (final-year dissertation under unusual circumstances, university society leadership through a crisis, a previous role's quarter-end close) are far stronger than statements that you 'work well under pressure'.
  • Genuine curiosity beyond the textbook. The 'Actively curious' value is tested by whether you ask interesting questions about the firm, the team, the work, or the wider profession. A candidate who asks the partner a thoughtful question about how the Cinven investment is changing the firm's technology investment plans, or how the firm is positioning around the FRC's audit reform proposals, signals exactly the right disposition.
  • Inclusion as a lived value, not a slide. Grant Thornton holds Stonewall LGBTQ+ Inclusive Employer status, is a Disability Confident Leader, ranked #3 on the Social Mobility Employer Index in 2024, and signs the Race at Work Charter, Black Talent Charter, and Women in Finance Charter. Candidates who can speak to how they have created inclusive environments themselves — running a society, mentoring, building accessible processes — resonate strongly with the firm's stated culture.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Grant Thornton UK part of the same firm as Grant Thornton US after the 2024 New Mountain acquisition?
No. Grant Thornton US and Grant Thornton UK LLP are entirely separate legal entities, both members of the Grant Thornton International (GTIL) network. New Mountain Capital acquired Grant Thornton US in 2024. Grant Thornton UK LLP took its own strategic investment from Cinven, a European private equity firm, after a unanimous partnership vote, with the deal completing at the end of Q1 2025. The two transactions are independent. Joining Grant Thornton UK has no contractual, ownership, or operational connection to the US firm beyond the shared brand and the GTIL network membership.
What ATS does Grant Thornton UK use, and does Oracle HCM still apply?
Grant Thornton UK uses Workday Recruiting (Workday CXS). When you click Apply on any role on grantthornton.co.uk/careers, you are redirected to ukgrantt.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com under the CareersGrantThornton site. Some third-party recruitment data sources still list the firm as Oracle HCM — that is incorrect for the live application flow as of April 2026. You will create one Workday profile and reuse it across applications.
Does Grant Thornton UK sponsor Skilled Worker visas?
Selectively, yes. Grant Thornton UK is a Skilled Worker sponsor licence holder and routinely sponsors experienced specialists in genuinely hard-to-fill areas — senior Tax, Restructuring, Forensics, and certain Technology Risk roles. The firm does not normally sponsor trainee, graduate, apprentice, or general experienced roles where the UK labour market can supply candidates. Always answer the right-to-work question on the Workday application truthfully — it acts as a hard filter.
How competitive are the graduate, apprentice, and placement programmes?
Highly competitive but not artificially scarce. Grant Thornton consistently appears in the GTI Top 10 Graduate Employer (Accounting & Finance) and Top 10 School Leaver Employer (Accounting) rankings, and the brand is genuinely strong with university and college audiences. Applications open in late summer for the following September intake, the cycle runs on a rolling basis until programmes fill, and the strongest application windows are autumn and early winter rather than spring. The firm explicitly takes a holistic view — academics matter, but strengths, motivations, and connection to the values are weighed equally.
What is busy season really like at Grant Thornton, and is it as hard as at the Big 4?
Audit busy season runs January through April for the bulk of calendar-year-end clients, with secondary peaks in July (June year-end public sector) and October (September year-ends). Tax compliance has its own 31 January self-assessment deadline and 31 July payments-on-account peak. Hours during these peaks can stretch significantly — typically 50 to 60 hour weeks, with longer for senior staff carrying multiple jobs. The firm is honest in its early-careers material that this is a feature of the industry, not a bug. Day-to-day intensity varies meaningfully by service line: Tax compliance has predictable peaks, advisory and restructuring have client-driven rather than seasonal peaks, and audit has the most pronounced busy season pattern.
Will Grant Thornton fund my ACA, ACCA, or CTA training?
Yes — funded professional qualification training is a core part of every trainee programme. The most common route in audit is the ICAEW ACA training contract, which is a three-year programme combining work, study leave for exams, and structured on-the-job experience. Tax trainees normally study toward the ATT and then CTA. The firm pays course fees, provides paid study leave for exams, supplies tuition through one of the major training providers (typically BPP or Kaplan), and pays first-attempt exam fees. Re-sit fees are usually self-funded, which is normal practice across the profession.
How does the Cinven investment change what it is like to work at Grant Thornton UK?
Cinven is a long-term private equity investor rather than a flip-and-sell operator, and the partnership voted unanimously for the deal — so the day-to-day partnership culture, governance, and audit independence framework are explicitly preserved. The visible changes in 2025 and 2026 have been increased technology investment (particularly in audit and AI tooling), an aggressive lateral partner hiring plan (the firm has talked publicly about adding around 160 partners over two years), and capacity expansion across advisory service lines. For most employees the practical impact is more investment in tools and growing teams, rather than a change in identity. The audit firm (Grant Thornton UK LLP) and the advisory and tax firm (Grant Thornton UK Advisory & Tax LLP) remain structurally separate, which the FRC requires for audit firms with non-audit private capital.
Where is Grant Thornton UK headquartered, and how flexible is hybrid working?
The London headquarters is at 30 Finsbury Square in the City of London, with around 30 offices across the UK. Hybrid working is the published default for most non-client-site days — typical patterns are two to three days a week in office or at client sites, with the balance worked from home, but the actual mix varies by team, by season, and by the needs of specific clients. Audit roles in particular require significant time at client sites, especially during busy season, so candidates who only want fully remote roles will find Grant Thornton a poor fit.
How should I prepare for the strengths-based questions in the early-careers assessment?
Strengths questions ask what energises you and what comes naturally, rather than what you have specifically done before. The format is normally short, with limited time per answer, and you cannot prepare a memorised STARR story in the same way as for competency questions. The best preparation is genuine reflection: what tasks do you lose track of time doing, what kind of problems do you instinctively try to solve, what role do you naturally take in a group. Map honest answers against the seven published competencies before the assessment, and answer quickly and authentically — strengths assessments are designed to penalise overthought and rehearsed answers.
Can I apply to multiple service lines at the same time?
For early-careers programmes, the firm normally asks you to choose one service-line preference per cycle to keep the assessment process focused, although you may be considered for adjacent areas if the recruiter sees a strong fit elsewhere. For experienced-hire roles you can technically apply to as many requisitions as you wish through Workday, but recruiters discourage scattergun applications — applying to three roles where you can credibly explain your interest in each is materially stronger than applying to ten where you cannot. The Workday system shows recruiters all your active applications, so inconsistency between motivational statements is visible.

Open Positions

Grant Thornton currently has 29 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 29 open positions at Grant Thornton

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Sources

  1. Grant Thornton UK — Careers (canonical UK careers site)
  2. Grant Thornton UK — Early careers application process (four-stage published flow)
  3. Grant Thornton UK — Skills we look for (seven published competencies)
  4. Grant Thornton UK — Experienced professionals recruitment process (one to two stages, STARR + Reflections, three values)
  5. Grant Thornton UK — About us (200+ partners, 5,000+ UK people, 76,000+ global)
  6. Grant Thornton UK — Early careers (Malcolm Gomersall CEO, ~5,500 UK headcount)
  7. Grant Thornton UK — Workday CXS jobs API (live ATS verification)
  8. Grant Thornton UK — Strategic investment from Cinven announcement
  9. Consultancy.uk — Grant Thornton unveils plan to accelerate growth in UK market
  10. Accountancy Daily — Choosing an investor was never about money, it was about alignment, says Grant Thornton boss
  11. Consultancy.uk — Grant Thornton strengthens UK leadership with 100 senior appointments over 2025
  12. Grant Thornton UK — Annual report (FY24 net revenue £724m, +11% YoY)
  13. Grant Thornton UK — Transparency Report 2024 (audit firm structure, two LLP arrangement)
  14. Grant Thornton International — Wikipedia overview (member-firm network, 76,000+ people, 150+ markets)