Ball was appointed as managing partner and UK chair in July 2020 taking over from Steve Varley who moved to the global leadership team. He took over the top job at EY after heading up the audit business as managing partner of assurance UK&I and UK head of audit. The 61-year old has been with the firm for over 40 years, having joined in 1983 as an audit trainee.

He would normally have stepped down after four years or faced re-election by the UK partnership, but his term has now been extended to July 2025.

In a statement, EY said: ‘As has been standard practice for many years, EY partner tenures are regularly extended in the UK and across the global network for a variety of reasons including client delivery and leadership responsibilities.’

Since Ball has been in charge, EY has increased revenue by 36% from £2.75bn for FY2021 to £3.76bn for FY2023, while there are now 21,000 staff, up from 17,000 over the same period.

Last year EY went through a turbulent period when global partners rejected Project Everest, a plan to split up the firm into two separate business divisions, which was abandoned in April 2023 after eight months of discussion, various senior leadership hires and a bill for over $600m (£470m).

The restructure would have divided the $45bn (£40bn) revenue global network roughly 60:40 between the consulting and tax business, which was going to be listed, and the audit-focused partnership, which would have retained the EY brand.

At the time, the EY board said: ‘We acknowledge the challenges with separating some of our businesses that have the deepest technical expertise in a way that gives both organisations the capabilities they need to compete in the market effectively.

‘We also recognise that we need more time to make the necessary investments to prepare the businesses for a separation.’

It also did not rule out the possibility of splitting up the global firm in the future, adding that EY ‘must have the strategic flexibility to execute a new transaction’.