PKF Littlejohn turns to ControlUp to support rapid UK growth
PKF Littlejohn has selected ControlUp's digital employee experience platform to support the firm's rapid expansion by enhancing real-time IT monitoring and telemetry.
The accountancy and advisory business, with offices in London, Leeds, and Manchester, is recognised for its audit services to AIM and publicly traded companies. The firm currently holds the position of largest auditor for AIM-listed businesses in the UK. It is ranked fifth overall for UK stock market clients, according to the Corporate Adviser Rankings guide.
PKF Littlejohn is undergoing significant growth, with plans to increase its workforce from 450 in late 2023 to more than 900 by the end of 2025. This expansion also includes a 66% increase in office space at its Canary Wharf headquarters, as part of its broader growth strategy.
To ensure its technology infrastructure scales effectively alongside its growing business, PKF Littlejohn has implemented the ControlUp ONE platform. The solution is designed to provide real-time visibility into endpoint performance, offer proactive solutions for remote work issues, and optimise infrastructure across various 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 deployment covers PKF Littlejohn's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) as well as its fleet of Windows laptops and desktops. With many staff working remotely part of the week, ControlUp supports a hybrid working arrangement across all company locations.
Key use cases
Three primary use cases influenced the firm's decision: improving end-user experience, right-sizing VDI resources, and facilitating server infrastructure and capacity planning.
In terms of user experience, ControlUp supplies IT service desk personnel with real-time diagnostics to identify the root causes of issues such as slow Wi-Fi or congested broadband connections, which reduces guesswork and unnecessary IT interventions.
For infrastructure decisions, ControlUp provides detailed telemetry, enabling PKF Littlejohn's IT team to assess whether current VDI configurations are adequately resourced or need adjustment. These insights inform decisions about migrating users to VDI or retaining traditional computing devices, alongside considerations for patch management, vulnerability management, and preventing configuration drift.
Regarding capacity planning, the ability to receive early server-stage alerts allows the IT department to scale proactively as new employees join, aiming to preempt performance issues before they affect daily operations.
Lifecycle decisions
ControlUp's data also plays a role in the firm's hardware lifecycle planning, offering information on devices that may need to be upgraded or retired to support more sustainable and economical procurement.
"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."
As an example of the system's impact, ControlUp helped quickly resolve a connectivity issue for a remote employee working abroad by identifying the use of a smartphone hotspot, thereby saving IT staff potentially several hours of manual troubleshooting.
PKF Littlejohn conducted an in-house trial earlier in the year before rolling out the ControlUp ONE platform in July 2025, with software provisioned by Highgate IT Solutions. The internal IT team, including service desk analysts and infrastructure specialists, reported an uncomplicated installation process and noted that no external assistance was required.
"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," Madden concludes.
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."
