In many ways, the future of the accounting profession remains in flux, but that hasn’t yet led to a significant drop-off in membership or student involvement in accountancy bodies in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
In fact, according to a new report by the U.K.’s financial regulator, British and Irish accountancy groups saw an overall increase in membership between 2024 and 2025. Per a report released Monday by the Financial Reporting Council, member populations in such groups ticked up 2.5% to 418,986 last year.
FRC data shows steady year-by-year increases in membership in the U.K. and Ireland over the last five years. In 2021, for instance, that number sat at 389,330 and has increased each year since. That amounts to a 7.6% increase from 2021 to 2025.
Chartered Accountants Ireland, which merged with Certified Public Accountants Ireland in late 2024, saw the largest percentage increase in numbers, growing its ranks by 16.2% to 8,482. Other groups that saw membership increases include the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (up 3%), Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (2.3%) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (0.2%).
The population of accounting students, on the other hand, is another story. Though the total student population in the U.K. and Ireland ticked up 0.9% to 156,367 in 2025, researchers reported a 3.1% decrease from 2021 to 2025.
In an email, a spokesperson for ACCA said the group continues to “work to attract a strong pipeline of future talent” and is introducing a redesigned qualification next year to keep pace with changes to the profession.
“ACCA works hard to make the qualification relevant and attractive both for financial professionals and for employers,” the spokesperson said. “The role of accountants is being redefined as the pace of technological change increases, and as the definition of business success is widened from financial to interconnected model of value.”
It’s worth noting, too, that the small year-over-year uptick in the student population in the region occurred against the backdrop of declining student numbers around the globe, per the FRC.
And, for what it’s worth, ACCA’s own reach extends beyond the U.K. and Ireland, with a total of 266,100 members across 179 countries at the end of March.
Melanie Profitt, ACCA’s president, told CFO.com in an interview over the summer that her group has “got to do a bit of myth busting around what the accounting profession is and what the job actually looks like” in response to accounting shortages. She added that ACCA’s updated qualification is a reflection that career paths nowadays are “no longer a linear progression.” The new qualification, she said, is “built around that step-on, step-off approach.”
Meanwhile, in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, Dale Kay Daley, regional engagement executive at the ICAEW, said that the FRC’s latest report “makes for encouraging reading.”
“We appear to be seeing positive signs around attracting talent and increasing choice in the audit market, while the continued decline in the number of registered audit firms highlights the ongoing consolidation across the profession,” she wrote. “For those of us who care about the future of accountancy and audit, there is plenty in this report to be optimistic about, but also a reminder that the profession continues to evolve.”
