https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/05/04/end-of-accountancy-gravy-train/
Paywall is blocking for me from reading this article in full but if the content is what I think it is, we're going to have much fewer people studying accounting in college and even fewer wanted to stay at a PA firm for the long haul. The prospect of making lots of money as a partner is literally one of the only reasons people go in the field or knowing well that having Big 4 on the resume can pivot them elsewhere.
Yep, the gravy train ended 20 years ago.
It's not highly paid, the promotion path is no longer there, higher leverage models are much more common place and AI is going to eat a lot of the lower level roles anyway.
I'm not sure what people even go into these days unless they're some of the few getting into PE/IB/Advisory.
We need graduates with actual skills, wide ranging understanding of tech, AI, systems, critical and analytical thinking. Not the knowledge overload school has taught them.
Perhaps a new post-graduation education curriculum will spawn to meet this demand, who knows. We don't need knowledge workers anymore, we need people comfortable sitting at the controls.
In the last 3 years alone I’ve had multiple younger family members who were previously interested in accounting and going to PA completely switch off and pursue other career paths. The offshoring and AI stuff is spooking them and the PE issues drove the nail in the coffin.
Bummed since I was really enjoying mentoring and helping them.
I understand that. If I were a college student today, I probably would not have picked to go into this field. Things have changed a lot in a decade.