We are well underway into 2023 and demand continues unabated for qualified accountants, particularly for those in the 1 to 5 year post qualified bracket. 10 trends of note:

 

  • 1.   Big 6 Accounting practices struggle to hang-onto their Auditors beyond contract and those at Assistant Manager and Manager levels are increasingly Accountants who have moved to Ireland from overseas, largely via Critical skills

 

  • 2.   Newly qualified Irish Accountants are commonly looking to leap directly from External Audit into Commercial Finance, FP&A or Corporate Finance and they are choosing to bypass Financial accounting and Internal Audit. This is creating supply issues. By simply not doing this, you are increasing your chances of being selected for that job in Financial Accounting or Internal Audit in a sector that you potentially have not yet been exposed to in practice

 

  • 3.  If you are an immediately available qualified accountant who is open to an interim role and have a specialisation eg FP&A, Internal Audit, Capital Expenditure, Sustainability, Regulatory Accounting, Systems Analysis, Treasury, IFRS 17, Project Management, Advisory or Alteryx then your job search should be short in duration as there is a large demand in this space

 

  • 4.  If you are a qualified accountant with recent experience in Insurance, Real Estate, Funds, PE, Sustainable Energy (or any Energy for that matter), Health Care, Pharma/Life Science and/or Fintech you can also expect your phone to ring and your wait for a change of job to be short

 

  • 5.  If you are a qualified Accountant with Data Analysis experience and you can tell a story with these numbers, then you will also be in demand

 

  • 6.  If you are a qualified Accountant with an open, communicative style and you enjoy working with different teams and people plus have a commercial edge, then working as a Finance Business Partner could and probably will bring you high levels of job satisfaction

 

  • 7.  If you are a technical accountant who enjoys understanding, interpreting and working with Accounting Standards then, there is a huge body of work for the taking with demand from both Advisory firms and Industry. Having a “passion” for Technical Accounting standards is not the norm I will admit, but if you have this affinity then my colleague Sarah Kelly is very busy in this accounting space and would be happy to discuss your “wish-list” in more detail

 

  • 8.  If you are an Accountant who is experienced and loves working in practice then the world is your oyster. If you are in a large practice, consider moving to a smaller practice at a more senior level where you will get broader experience. On the other side of the coin, if you feel you would like to move to a larger practice, then this option is most certainly available to you. Speak our Practice expert Pat Dolan and he will have a solution for you whether you are looking in Dublin, Donegal or Dingle!

 

  • 9.  My colleague Ruth Barry is flat out servicing the Accounting & Finance needs of Hospitals & Health /Community care providers the length and breadth of the country. To be successful in this space, in addition to your accounting background, it really helps that you have a passion as well as ideally some past experience in this sector. This will help you to really understand the pace and demands that are definitely required for you to enjoy the work and commit yourself for the medium to long term

 

  • 10.  On a personal level, I am busy placing Head of Finance, FC and FDs into Insurance, Banking and Funds. Whilst, the larger existing banks and financial institutions typically (and rightly so) promote from within, other new start ups in the PE, Fintech space need to go out to the external market in order to beef up their management team. Areas of scarcity across Investment firms are certainly in the space of Regulatory Reporting and Treasury where demand tends to outstrip supply

 

Here at A+F Recruitment, we like to work closely with clients and candidates to make sure we understand: What you excel in, What your motivation is for change, What you need to build your finance team and How we can help to make this happen.

If you are looking for your next career move or indeed looking to add to your finance team, please reach out to our experienced team here.