Finance talent won’t wait for you in 2026
Written by Gavin Warner, Managing Director
Hiring challenges in accountancy and finance aren’t easing up - and they’re not a passing phase. The UK talent market is moving fast and organisations which continue to treat hiring as a cyclical, or purely transactional, activity will be left behind.
Traditional recruitment pipelines are showing their limits. Despite ongoing cost pressures, demand for talent hasn’t dropped. Firms across the sectors are saying the same thing: specialist skills are scarce, competition is fierce and the old ways of hiring simply aren’t working anymore.
Speed has shifted from being a nice-to-have to a business-critical capability. Sheridan Maine surveyed 35,000 accounting, audit, and tax hiring leaders. Though not everyone responded, the results reveal a consistent pattern: slow or unclear hiring processes lose candidates, not to higher salaries, but to employers who move decisively and communicate well. When recruitment isn’t treated as a strategic lever, organisations simply fall behind.
Finding the right people now takes more than posting a job ad and waiting. Most high-impact finance professionals aren’t actively applying. They’re found through targeted outreach, referrals and specialist networks. Firms relying solely on inbound applications are missing the very talent they say they need. In today’s constrained market, proactive sourcing isn’t an advantage, it’s the minimum standard.
Flexible and hybrid working have also moved from perk to expectation. The survey shows that firms planning to introduce flexibility in 2026 are already behind those that have embedded it into how they operate today. And flexibility goes beyond where people work. Contract and interim hiring are increasingly being used as core capabilities, giving organisations faster access to scarce, regulation-ready expertise without adding long-term cost pressure.
The shape of finance talent itself is changing. Sheridan Maine’s data highlights a clear shift toward hybrid professionals, people who combine strong finance fundamentals with systems fluency, data capability, and confidence with technology. Scarcity is no longer just about qualifications. It’s about who can operate at the intersection of finance, technology and regulation. Organisations hiring for yesterday’s skill sets are finding it harder to deliver today’s outcomes.
Pay strategies are evolving too. While overall salary growth is slowing, scarcity still commands a premium where it matters most. Rather than blanket increases, organisations are becoming more targeted, using bonuses, retention incentives and tailored benefits to protect critical capability without inflating fixed costs. Pay in 2026 will be precise, not sentimental.
And candidates are looking at far more than salary alone. Clear progression, meaningful development, flexibility that actually works and leadership that understands where finance is heading all play a decisive role in where top talent chooses to go.
Winning talent in 2026 won’t come from simply outbidding the market. It will come from out executing it, hiring faster, investing more deliberately in skills, and taking a longer-term view than competitors. Everyone else will still be waiting for the market to fix itself.
To find out more about Sheridan Maine’s 2026 Survey, visit: https://www.sheridanmaine.com/knowledge-centre/latest-news-blogs/the-main-hiring-challenge-facing-uk-accounting-audit-and-tax-employers-in-2025/
Sheridan Maine is part of the Pertemps Network Group.
