Accounting in 2026: The year ahead in numbers

With the new year upon us, it’s worth thinking about what 2026 will bring, and what accounting firms expect their next 12 months to look like.

With that in mind, Accounting Today conducted its annual Year Ahead survey in the late fall to find out firms’ expectations for 2026, including their growth expectations, their hiring plans, how they think tax season will play out and much more. Some major themes:

• Overall, they expect moderate growth over the year, with the majority seeing most of that coming from tax (though larger firms expect the most growth from advisory services).
• Interestingly, relatively few firms say they have far more work than they can handle.
• Tech spending is staying at roughly the same level, at just over a fifth of overall firm budgets.
• Almost half say that artificial intelligence is already having a “dramatic” impact on the profession.

For more, see the data points below.