Whether it be more private equity backing, lower interest rates or the fight to gain a competitive edge over the competition, M&A among managed service providers and solution providers was red hot in 2022.

The number of IT services M&A transactions went from 435 in 2020 to 675 in 2021 to 656 in 2022, according to a “Mergers & Acquisitions in the Technology Services Industry in Q4 2022” report put out by Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Corporate Finance Associates. CFA is an investment banking firm with decades of experience in executing mergers and acquisitions in the IT and telecom services industries.

The company with the most M&A deals in 2022 was Dublin, Ireland-based Accenture with 25, followed by The 20 MSP and Upstack with 12, and Converge Technology Solutions and Ernst and Young with 10. The aggregate value of IT service M&A transactions went from $36 billion in 2020 to $72 billion in 2021 to $51 billion in 2022.

“In an effort to avert a pandemic-driven recession, the U.S., Canadian and other governments around the world executed very aggressive fiscal and monetary policies throughout 2020, 2021 and 2022,” John Holland, managing director of Corporate Finance Associates, told CRN. “Those policies provided vast liquidity and unusually low interest rates that fueled M&A transactions during those years to a level vastly above the pre-pandemic level.

“Also, the pandemic propelled certain types of IT services companies, such as the companies that provide unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) and cybersecurity solutions for remote workforces,” he added. “Such companies attracted a surge of capital from acquirers in 2021 and 2022.”

With the biggest acquirer being Accenture, Holland believes that the global consulting firm will continue to dominate certain areas of the IT services industry, such as big data and cloud solutions.

Here were the top 10 M&A deal makers in the IT services space in 2022.