17/10/2026
The talent shortage in UK accounting isn't new. It's been building for years and most practices have felt it in some form, missed deadlines, overstretched staff, work that sits longer than it should before someone can pick it up.
But here's what the number doesn't tell you.
The practices not feeling it aren't luckier. They aren't in a better location or a more attractive market. They made a structural decision, usually twelve to eighteen months before the pressure arrived, about where their capacity was going to come from and what they were going to stop relying on exclusively.
They stopped treating headcount as the only answer to a capacity problem. And because they did, when the talent market tightened, they weren't exposed in the same way.
The window to make that decision doesn't close. But it does get more expensive the longer you wait, because you're making it under pressure instead of with clarity.
