Average profit per equity partner for the year was £865,000. Deloitte said the results represented the seventh consecutive year of revenue growth and the second consecutive year of double-digit growth.

The increase from the previous year’s total of £3.04bn was driven by consulting revenue, up by 13.6% to £859m, and audit and risk advisory, which increased by 13.1% to £932m.

Tax was up by 5.7% to £691m and financial advisory, on a like-for-like basis, grew by 1.5% to £459m.

David Sproul, senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte, said: ‘This is a good performance in a complex and uncertain market which has been impacted by Brexit and the elections in the US and UK.

‘Consulting has continued to see significant demand for technology-enabled business transformation and there has been further strong growth in Deloitte Digital, our creative digital consultancy.

‘The firm won a series of major audits this year, including BAE Systems, BP, Centrica and GlaxoSmithKline which has taken our share of the FTSE 100 audit market to 26% and we saw further success in the FTSE 250, private and international markets’

Sproul also reported strong growth in forensic accounting requirements, driven by a number of large investigations and regulatory remediation work across Europe.

Deloitte in Switzerland grew by 14.9% to CHF567m (£439m), with high demand for digital technology, cyber and M&A services. The firm has also won new audit clients including Lafarge Holcim.

In the past 12 months, Deloitte has announced a number of technology alliances, with Apple and McLaren Applied Technologies among others, plus acquisitions, including Market Gravity and Swedish creative agency Acne.

Sproul said: ‘Our clients are operating in a more globally connected way than ever before, and are increasingly turning to us not only for advice, but also for digital and physical products to solve their problems.

‘Through these alliances and acquisitions we will see Deloitte increasing our recruitment in the areas of digital design and big-data analytics.

‘We have continued to invest through this year of uncertainty and that investment in our people, in winning market share and in building market leading solutions has resulted in flat distributable profits.’

The firm recruited more than 3,500 people in the last financial year including more than 1,600 school leavers, interns and graduates.  In the UK, Deloitte promoted 57 new partners and recruited a further 30. The proportion of female partners in the UK now stands at 19%, up from 14% in 2014. Deloitte has a target that 25% of partners will be women by 2020.

Deloitte employs 16,898 people in the UK and Switzerland - up from 16,006 last year. Deloitte has 703 equity partners in the UK and Switzerland - down from 726 in FY16.

On 1 June 2017, Deloitte North West Europe came into effect, bringing together over 30,000 people across the UK, Switzerland, the Nordics, Belgium and the Netherlands to create a new €5bn (£4.64bn) firm.

Sproul said: ‘Deloitte North West Europe provides the scale, and the means, to increase our investment in the innovation clients need, and provide more growth and opportunity for our people. It will also play a part in helping us consistently embed quality in all we do.'

Outside of London, Deloitte now employs nearly 6,000 people across 22 offices and this year, the firm has announced job creation programmes in Belfast, Cardiff and Newcastle.