Accounting pay is a wide pyramid rather than a cliff: trainees start on modest salaries — modest enough to be blamed for the profession's recruitment problem — but the ladder is unusually reliable, and the qualification travels across borders and industries better than almost any other license. The spread from first-year associate to Big Four equity partner runs roughly tenfold.
Country matters as much as seniority, and not only through exchange rates. The same newly qualified chartered accountant commands a few thousand dollars a year in South Asia, mid five figures in Europe, and six figures in Switzerland or New York — one reason accounting is among the most internationally mobile professions, and why firms run large offshore delivery centers in India and the Philippines for exactly the work automation is also targeting.
The pay ladder
US Big Four first-year audit salary, typical 2024 offers; London equivalents roughly £30k–£35k.
US, typical post-qualification audit senior compensation, 2024; the first step where the license visibly pays.
US Big Four audit manager range midpoint, 2024; UK managers roughly £60k–£75k outside London weighting.
US, 2024 ranges; the last salaried rung before the partnership decision, typically 10–13 years in.
US Big Four equity partners commonly earn $500k to well over $1M a year; listed-company CFO packages are comparable or higher.
What it pays around the world
Switzerland
Typical experienced accountant salary band, 2024 surveys; audit and fiduciary seniors in Zurich and Geneva run considerably higher.
United States
Median pay, accountants and auditors, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024.
Australia
Typical qualified-accountant salary band, 2024; accountants sit on Australia's skilled-migration occupation lists.
United Kingdom
Typical newly to recently qualified chartered accountant pay, 2024; ICAEW member average income including partners is far higher.
Germany
Typical accountant (Bilanzbuchhalter) salary, 2024 surveys; licensed Wirtschaftsprüfer and Steuerberater earn substantially more.
India
Average ICAI campus placement for newly qualified chartered accountants, 2024; senior partners in Mumbai earn large multiples.
Key numbers
Who employs them
Deloitte
The largest of the Big Four and the world's largest professional-services firm — roughly 460,000 people and about $67 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024.
PwC
Big Four network operating in over 140 countries with around 370,000 people; auditor to a substantial share of the world's largest listed companies.
EY
Big Four network of roughly 400,000 people; its 2023 flirtation with splitting audit from consulting was the profession's biggest structural story in years.
KPMG
The fourth of the Big Four, around 275,000 people; like its peers it now earns more from advisory services than from the audits that made its name.
BDO
The largest network outside the Big Four, with over 115,000 people in more than 160 countries — the top of the mid-tier that audits most mid-sized businesses.
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Congress's audit institution — the public-sector face of the profession, reporting tens of billions of dollars a year in measurable financial benefits from its audit work.
Where the demand is going
The rich world's accounting story of the 2020s is shortage. US CPA exam candidates fell by roughly a third between 2016 and 2021 per AICPA data, and hundreds of thousands of American accountants and auditors left the field around the pandemic years; the UK, Australia and New Zealand all list accountants and auditors among skilled-shortage occupations. Firms have responded with raised salaries, offshore delivery centers and lobbying to lower the 150-credit-hour barrier.
Automation is reshaping the pyramid rather than demolishing it: bookkeeping and clerk roles are projected to decline, while accountant and auditor employment grows and demand concentrates in qualified, judgment-bearing seniors. The result is an unusual market where the most automatable profession on paper has, in practice, more vacancies than candidates at the licensed level.
Globally the profession is still expanding. IFAC's member bodies count more than three million professional accountants and growth is fastest in Africa and Asia, tracking IFRS adoption in over 140 jurisdictions, tightening anti-money-laundering rules, and the arrival of sustainability assurance — every new thing regulators require companies to report becomes, reliably, new work for the people who verify reports.
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