…Fast-growing UK accountancy challenger brand in audit and advisory services deploys ControlUp DEX platform to ensure smooth IT operations across hybrid environments…
ControlUp, a global leader in Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management, announced that PKF Littlejohn, one of the UK’s fastest-growing accountancy, audit and advisory firms, has chosen the ControlUp ONE platform to deliver real-time, proactive infrastructure monitoring and telemetry across its entire IT infrastructure.
With offices in London, Leeds, and Manchester, PKF Littlejohn specialises in the complex auditing of AIM and publicly traded businesses. It is the largest auditor of AIM-listed companies in the UK and is the fifth ranked auditor of total UK stock market clients, according to the Corporate Adviser Rankings guide.
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As part of its growth strategy, PFK Littlejohn is set to double its headcount from 450 (late 2023) to over 900 by the end of 2025. The firm is also expanding its physical footprint, increasing office space by 66 percent at its Canary Wharf headquarters.
To scale its IT services in step with this growth, the firm turned to ControlUp to gain real-time visibility into endpoint performance, proactively remediate remote work issues and optimise infrastructure across its diverse mix of physical and virtual environments.
“We needed a platform that could deliver immediate insight into user experience and infrastructure health without creating overhead,” says Chris Madden, IT Director at PKF Littlejohn. “ControlUp enables us to get ahead and proactively address issues before they impact colleagues, whether that’s troubleshooting slow computer performance by a home worker or identifying under-provisioned VDI sessions.”
The ControlUp ONE platform is now deployed across PKF Littlejohn’s VDI deployments and fleet of Windows laptops and desktops. With employees working remotely several days a week, the platform supports a flexible hybrid working model across all locations.
Three key use cases drove ControlUp’s selection:
- Improving the end-user experience: ControlUp equips IT service desk staff with real-time diagnostics to pinpoint root causes of performance issues—such as slow Wi-Fi or congested broadband connections, without guesswork or unnecessary and time-consuming IT interventions.
- Right-sizing VDI resources: ControlUp provides telemetry for PKF Littlejohn’s infrastructure team to evaluate whether existing VDI configurations are appropriately resourced or require adjustment. This insight informs critical decisions in determining the balance of compute resources provided to employees – whether that’s to migrate more users to VDI (or keep them on traditional desktops or laptops) and the financial practicality of doing so. In addition, the team will use ControlUp for patch and vulnerability management along with configuration drift prevention.
- Server infrastructure and capacity planning: As the firm onboards dozens of new employees each month, ControlUp offers the IT department early warning alerts of server stress, enabling proactive scaling before performance issues emerge.
Beyond the day-to-day operations, ControlUp also supports PKF Littlejohn in smarter and more sustainable hardware lifecycle decisions. The platform helps determine which devices should be upgraded or retired, allowing for greener, cost-efficient procurement strategies.
“ControlUp will show us what hardware and compute we need, what can last and what can’t, costs to change and – given there’s some technical debt in our business – how older software will run on newer platforms,” explains Madden. “ControlUp is giving us the information across our whole IT estate so that informed decisions can be made based on objective data.”
ControlUp’s retrospective insights have already proven valuable. For instance, when a remote employee experienced connectivity issues from overseas, ControlUp telemetry data revealed that the user was relying on a smartphone hotspot, causing latency. Support staff was able to quickly diagnose the problem and resolve it, thereby saving hours on manual investigation.
Following a successful in-house trial earlier this year, PKF Littlejohn completed the deployment of the ControlUp ONE platform in July 2025, with the software supplied by Highgate IT Solutions, a trusted ControlUp reseller.
The PKF Littlejohn’s IT support team—including service desk analysts and infrastructure specialists—were impressed with the platform, citing its ease of installation and intuitive interface, reporting no need for external assistance during rollout.
Madden concludes, “The business case for ControlUp was easy to make to our leadership team—clear benefits, quick implementation, and a platform that aligns perfectly with our strategy of investing ahead of growth. As we continue to scale, ControlUp will help us stay proactive, efficient and focused on delivering exceptional IT experiences to our people.”
Simon Townsend, ControlUp’s SVP of Marketing & Office of the CTO, says, “In high-growth firms like PKF Littlejohn, ControlUp delivers the operational visibility needed to grow smart, stay agile, and ensure the workforce remains productive—no matter where, how, or on what device they work.”
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