Copilot Training NZ, home

17.4% of Canterbury employees work in professional services

Microsoft Copilot training for Canterbury advisers

Help professional staff catch up on correspondence and prepare client documents with clear review steps. Start where the authorised work already sits in your office applications.

EnquireWhere Copilot helps
Illustration generated with AI.
Employees in professional services
58,045Canterbury, February 2025
Share of Canterbury employees
17.4%3 of 16 regions
Share across New Zealand
18.4%all regions, February 2025
Location quotient
0.95×close to the national share

Professional services in Canterbury

Christchurch advisory teams serve a mix of business needs. BDO lists tax, audit, accounting and advisory services; Duncan Cotterill describes legal and support functions for sectors such as insurance, property and construction.1,2 For training, use a fictional Canterbury practice preparing a revised engagement letter after a scope discussion.

Copilot can assist with documents, messages, meetings and spreadsheets across Microsoft applications.4 We connect those tasks into a reviewable office sequence: find the agreed scope, draft the letter, verify the fee assumptions and assign the follow-up. Check your account's enabled capabilities first. A course should not depend on functionality the attendees cannot access.

Paid employees in professional services went from 52,785 in February 2020 to 58,045 in February 2025 (+10.0%).

Share of paid employees in professional services, by region

Share of employees in professional services by region, Canterbury highlighted
RegionChartShareNZ×
Auckland 24.1% 18.4% 1.3×
Wellington 21.9% 18.4% 1.2×
Canterbury (this page) 17.4% 18.4% 0.9×
Nelson 15.5% 18.4% 0.8×
Bay of Plenty 14.9% 18.4% 0.8×
Hawke's Bay 14.0% 18.4% 0.8×
Waikato 13.9% 18.4% 0.8×
Otago 13.6% 18.4% 0.7×
Taranaki 12.5% 18.4% 0.7×
Tasman 11.3% 18.4% 0.6×
Gisborne 11.0% 18.4% 0.6×
Marlborough 10.6% 18.4% 0.6×
Manawatū-Whanganui 9.9% 18.4% 0.5×
Northland 9.8% 18.4% 0.5×
Southland 8.8% 18.4% 0.5×
West Coast 7.8% 18.4% 0.4×

Paid employees at business locations in the region, February 2025. The tick marks the national share. × is the regional share divided by the national share.

Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.

What professional services covers in Canterbury

Divisions in professional services, Canterbury
DivisionChartEmployeesShareNZ×
Media and telecoms 3,458 1.0% 1.3% 0.8×
Finance and insurance 6,997 2.1% 2.8% 0.8×
Property and rental 5,038 1.5% 1.5% 1.0×
Professional services 26,416 7.9% 8.3% 1.0×
Admin and support services 16,136 4.8% 4.6% 1.1×

ANZSIC06 divisions in this industry group: share of the region's paid employees, against New Zealand.

Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.

Local context

  • BDO's national AI page describes staff training and controlled use of approved tools.3 That supports a practical rollout question for a local firm: who owns each recurring client document, and how will that person test an AI-assisted draft before colleagues adopt it?3

Organisations are named for local context only. No relationship with them is implied.

Towns in Canterbury

Each town page has its own figures and local brief.

Or see Microsoft Copilot training across Canterbury.

Where Copilot helps professional services teams

  • Draft the scope letter in Word

    Reference an authorised precedent and a fabricated set of agreed changes. Ask Word for a draft that preserves exclusions and marks missing details. The engagement partner checks the scope against the original agreement. Keep the precedent owner involved when an output suggests a new standard clause.

    • Engagement administrators
    • Copilot in Word

  • Identify the open client question

    Summarise an Outlook sample thread into client requests, advice already approved and questions awaiting an answer. Open the source messages before replying. Have the adviser confirm that the draft neither broadens previous advice nor treats a client's assumption as a fact established by the firm.

    • Client relationship staff
    • Copilot in Outlook

  • Check the meeting action record

    Use a permitted Teams transcript for a mock internal engagement review. Ask for decisions, proposed options and assigned actions in separate groups. Attendees correct the recap while the discussion is fresh. A suggestion made during the meeting should not appear as advice already accepted by the client.

    • Practice managers
    • Copilot in Teams

  • Explain a resourcing worksheet

    Try Excel with a synthetic task plan and a glossary of categories. Ask it to explain unmatched allocations and missing assumptions. Inspect the underlying cells and reconcile totals before preparing a partner note. Use the exercise to teach review of formulas, rather than promise an accurate forecast from incomplete data.

    • Business analysts
    • Copilot in Excel

  • Build a precedent-location helper

    Studio supports agents grounded in organisational knowledge.5 Prototype a helper that points staff to the approved letter library and its owner. Exclude client matters from the initial source set. Test a retired precedent and a request for confidential advice to establish where the agent must stop and escalate.

    • Knowledge and IT leads
    • Copilot Studio

An engagement change with a visible review trail

  1. Write a mock client request that changes a deliverable but leaves the fee assumption unresolved.
  2. Use Outlook to identify the open issue and ask the adviser to resolve it.
  3. Draft the revised scope in Word using the checked decision and an approved precedent.
  4. Record the partner's review before the document enters the firm's sending process.

Courses

  1. 1Introductory

    Microsoft Copilot foundations

    A first hands-on session on Copilot Chat and Copilot in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

  2. 2Organisation

    Copilot rollout and readiness

    Prepare the tenant, choose a pilot, and measure whether people use Copilot well.

Professional services in other regions

Other industries in Canterbury

See Microsoft Copilot for professional services, finance and property across New Zealand, or all training in Canterbury.

Professional services in Canterbury: questions

Who belongs in the initial practice pilot?

Include an adviser, an administrator and the person who controls the document library. They can test the full route from source material to reviewed output. Choose people with authority to correct the sample process, not only enthusiasm for the tool.

Can we train using client meetings?

A fictional internal meeting is the easiest starting point. Real recordings require permission and your firm's approval for the proposed use. Check the transcript for identifying details and discuss how the resulting recap will enter the client record.

Does ordinary Microsoft access include every exercise?

Microsoft's current guidance describes different access and grounding levels. Ask your administrator which functions are enabled for the attendees. The organiser can then select app exercises that work with those accounts and keep licence decisions separate from learning objectives.4

How does TheColab deliver firm training?

We can run the workshop in your Canterbury office, using material the practice approves. Public workshop days are available for individual staff. A workplace session is useful when partners and support teams need to agree the same review procedure.

Train your professional services team in Canterbury

  1. ScopeHeadcount, sites, Microsoft 365 plan and licences, and the teams you want to start with.
  2. PlanWe propose a course, a pilot group and a format, and agree the files and meetings to use.
  3. TrainOn-site or over Teams, in Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, with your own work.
  • In person
  • Remote
  • Half-day workshop
  • Full-day workshop
  • Team rollout

Independent training by TheColab. Not affiliated with Microsoft.

Enquire

Tell us about your team in Canterbury. We reply by email with a suggested course and format.

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Sources

Written 6 October 2026. Employment figures come from Stats NZ Business Demography Statistics.