Giga-projects

Saudi Arabia still needs consultants despite PwC ban

March 13, 2025, 3:33 PM

The mirrored building in Madain Saleh at the Alula giga-project in Saudi Arabia — The mirrored building in Madain Saleh at Alula. Giga projects such as this need specialised skills that are in relative short supply in the kingdom

Saudi consultancy sector worth $3bn
Lack of home-grown talent
Reliance on outsiders unpopular

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund may have banned the global professional services giant PwC from any new advisory work for the next year, but the kingdom still needs all the help it can get, according to analysts.

The country is spending billions of dollars on infrastructure and other projects as it attempts to diversify its economy and generate jobs for an expanding and relatively youthful population.

That investment drive, under the umbrella of its Vision 2030 economic and social development strategy, has helped create a consultancy industry worth $3 billion in revenues, which grew by almost a fifth in 2023.

That growth shows no immediate sign of abating, given a persistent shortage of local talent.

“They can’t do this without a lot of people and a lot of expertise,” said Dane Albertelli, a senior analyst at Source Global Research, which analyses global consultancies. “At the moment, they’re kind of maxed out.”

Neither PIF, the $925 billion sovereign wealth fund at the forefront of the kingdom’s investment drive, nor PwC have commented publicly but it seems that a fight over expertise was the most immediate cause of the spat.

The UK’s Financial Times has reported that PIF was irked by an attempt by PwC to poach a top auditor from one of its subsidiaries, Neom.

Neom, initially pitched at $500 billion, is a futuristic city project on Saudi Arabia’s north-western Red Sea coast which could now cost trillions and is one of the kingdom’s so-called giga projects.

These giga projects and others need specialised skills that are in relative short supply in the kingdom of 19 million Saudi citizens, almost half of whom are under the age of 30.

Neom, for instance, includes The Line, a linear city that is planned to be the height of the Empire State Building and 110 miles long.

Artist's impression of The Line, part of Neom. Saudi Arabia is scaling back on spending on its giga-projects, including consultancy — An artist’s impression of The Line, part of Neom

Over the coming years, Saudi Arabia will host, and need to build and prepare for, a series of large-scale events including Expo 2030 and the Fifa World Cup in 2034.

“This idea of massive investment is going to be sustained for the next 10 years,” said Albertelli. “It’s just about how firms can capitalise on that.”

PwC’s competitors among the so-called Big Four global professional services companies – EY, KPMG and Deloitte – are likely to be looking to fill the gap left by PwC.

But not everybody is happy with Saudi Arabia’s reliance on international consultants, and this includes some senior figures in the kingdom.

Mohammad Al Qahtani, a former senior official in the Saudi royal household, and now CEO of Riyadh-based investment management company Saudi Arabia Holding Co, told his 308,000 followers on LinkedIn last week: “The PIF-PwC decision isn’t just a headline – it’s a wake-up call.”

Al Qahtani has contacts at the highest levels of Saudi society and his views are likely to count in the corridors of power.

The reliance on international consultants is “unsustainable”, Al Qahtani pointedly wrote in his LinkedIn post.