Just 5% of US staff on H-1B visas: Accenture

Bengaluru: Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said H-1B visas are not a major concern for the company, noting that just 5% of its US workforce is on such visas."This is really a non-issue because we only have about 5% of our people in the US on H-1B visas, and they're for really specialised experience and skills for our clients. Not something that's really a big impact on Accenture," she said during an earnings call on Thursday.A Kotak Institutional Equities report showed that Accenture steadily reduced its reliance on H-1B visas, with initial approvals dropping to 190 in the first nine months of 2025, compared with 3,442 in 2015. The figure stood at 798 last year. Accenture's headcount declined by 11,419 sequentially in the Sept quarter, bringing the total to 7.7 lakh employees, including more than 3.5 lakh in India.Accenture CFO Angie Park said the company launched a six-month business optimisation programme in Q4, recording a $615-million charge, with an additional $250 million expected in Q1, taking the total to about $865 million. "The business optimisation programme has two parts: one related to rapid talent rotation that Julie mentioned, which reflects severance associated with headcount reductions that we are making in a compressed timeline, and second, related to the divestiture of two acquisitions that are no longer aligned with our strategic priorities. These actions will result in cost savings, which will be reinvested in our people and our business," Park said. Sweet said that in FY26, Accenture plans to increase its headcount across its three markets, including in the US and Europe, reflecting the demand it sees in the business. "In addition to continuing to hire world-class talent, in FY25, we developed and are implementing a refreshed, robust three-pronged talent strategy to rotate our workforce. We are investing in upskilling our reinventors, which is our primary strategy," she said.Accenture has also been expanding its AI capabilities. In FY23, it had 40,000 AI and data professionals, with only around 30 employees working on a handful of generative AI projects generating negligible revenue. Today, the company has 77,000 AI and data professionals. "We worked on more than 6,000 advanced AI projects just this year, and we delivered meaningful revenue in FY25," Sweet added.For FY25, Accenture reported revenue rose 7%, with growth across all verticals and geographies. The operating margin rose to 15.6%, expanding by 10 basis points (100bps = 1 percentage point) from the previous year. Of the total revenue growth, 4% was organic and 3% was inorganic. Accenture follows a Sept-Aug financial year.In Q4, revenue was up 4.5% with all geographies reporting growth, though healthcare declined 3%, while other verticals expanded. By industry group, media & technology grew 6%, BFSI rose 10%, health & public service increased 7%, and products advanced 8%. Regionally, Q4 revenues grew 5% in local currency in the Americas, 3% in EMEA, and 6% in Asia-Pacific. By vertical, communications, media & technology increased 7%, while financial services led with 15% growth. For FY26, Accenture has guided revenue growth in the range of 2-5%, including about 1.5% from inorganic contribution. In Q4, the company added 37 clients with quarterly bookings above $100 million, taking the total to a record 129 for the year. It also ended FY25 with 305 Diamond clients, representing its largest relationships. Accenture highlighted that its early decision in FY23 to commit $3 billion over multiple years to lead in generative AI is paying off. In FY25, revenue from generative and agentic AI tripled from FY24 to $2.7 billion, while bookings nearly doubled to $5.9 billion.