The People They Met: Closing the Talent Gap in UK Consultancy Engagements

An advisory engagement is, in practice, a controlled experiment in organisational transparency. A specialist firm is invited inside the operation and given access to reporting lines, pay bands, capability gaps and the people who hold the place together. Most boards negotiate confidentiality, data protection and intellectual property with appropriate care. Far fewer give the same attention to a quieter exposure: the adviser’s growing familiarity with exactly which employees are capable, underpaid and mobile.

In 2026, with competition for specialist skills still intense across sectors from financial services to engineering, that exposure deserves board-level attention. It is not a reason to avoid advisers. It is a reason to treat talent protection as part of the engagement design rather than a clause to be discovered after a resignation.

The Clause That Arrives Too Late

Non-solicitation provisions are standard in consultancy terms. They are also frequently drafted in language that assumes a dispute will be obvious. Many refer only to direct approaches, name no individuals, and carry a duration that expires before the adviser’s knowledge has stopped being useful. Boards often accept them because they sit among boilerplate that legal teams have seen before.

Two questions are rarely asked at signature. First, who does the clause actually bind — the consultancy entity, its principals, or the individual advisers who sat in the client’s offices? Second, what evidence would the client need to enforce it? A clause that cannot be evidenced is a clause that will not be used.

What Solicitation Is Made to Mean

English law does not prohibit a consultancy from hiring a client’s staff outright; restraints must be reasonable and are construed narrowly. The practical work therefore happens in definition. A robust clause will address indirect approaches, introductions made through a third party, and the use of a colleague’s network. It will be clear whether general advertising — a careers page post that happens to reach the client’s employees — falls inside or outside the restriction.

Boards should also consider whether named individuals need protection. In small specialist markets, the loss of one technical lead can matter more than the departure of a dozen generalists. Naming roles or individuals is cumbersome, but a schedule of critical posts can be reviewed and updated as the engagement progresses.

Secondments and the Blurred Line

Secondment arrangements create a particular ambiguity. When a client’s employee spends time embedded with an adviser, or an adviser’s staff work alongside a client team, the distinction between host and home organisation becomes less clear. The secondee may return with a clearer view of their own market value and a warmer relationship with the adviser than with their employer.

Secondment terms should therefore address more than day rates and indemnities. They should set out who may approach whom at the end of the arrangement, how performance feedback is shared, and whether the adviser may offer employment to a secondee within a defined period. This is not distrust; it is the same clarity that makes any joint working arrangement function.

Signals During Delivery

Most talent risk announces itself before a resignation letter. Advisers ask for organisation charts that go beyond the scope of the work. They inquire about reporting lines, tenure and pay progression in areas outside the project. A role appears on the consultancy’s careers page with a specification that mirrors a client job title. None of these is proof of bad faith. Together, they are a reason to ask a question.

The board’s route to that question is usually the internal sponsor. A short monthly check — who has the adviser met, what has been requested, what is being discussed outside formal workshops — is more useful than a post-mortem. It also gives the client a chance to correct a misunderstanding before it becomes a recruitment conversation.

The Retention Conversation You Have Been Postponing

The moment a familiar name appears on a supplier’s careers page, the instinct is to reach for the contract. That is understandable but incomplete. The more urgent task is to understand why the person is looking. Pay is one factor; so are stalled progression, unclear succession and the sense of being managed rather than developed.

Retention conversations held in the shadow of an external offer are difficult, but they are still better than exit interviews. Managers should be equipped to ask direct questions without promising what they cannot deliver. Where the risk is genuine, a pay review, a defined development plan or a lateral move may be more persuasive than a counter-offer made in haste.

A Governance Habit, Not a Legal Threat

Talent protection works best as a routine part of engagement oversight. Procurement can add three questions to the standard assessment: who from the consultancy will have access to staff data, what restrictions apply to hiring, and how will both parties handle an approach that falls near the line. Legal teams can then draft with those answers in view.

Boards should also record the talent risk alongside other engagement risks. A short entry in the engagement register — noting critical roles exposed, the clause summary and the review date — gives the audit committee something to test. It also signals to the consultancy that the client is paying attention.

The aim is not to build a wall around the workforce. Specialist advisers bring external perspective, and some will eventually become employers. The aim is to ensure that when a client’s name appears on a supplier’s careers page, the board is not reading the clause for the first time.