Data report · July 2026

The Finances of UK Accountancy Firms

We read the latest filed accounts of 47,822 UK accountancy firms, taken straight from Companies House and parsed from the iXBRL each company files. The picture is not the one the word "firm" suggests: this is a profession of very small, thinly capitalised, mostly one-person businesses.

Most UK accountancy firms are one-person businesses

Of the 44,108 firms that report an employee count, 86% have four people or fewer, and 53% report just one or none. Only 660 firms - a fraction of the profession - employ 25 or more. The median firm is a single accountant, which is why "check the person, not the brand" matters when you choose one.

Cite: 53% of UK accountancy firms employ one person or fewer (median: 1). Source: Verified Accountants, The Finances of UK Accountancy Firms (July 2026), from Companies House filings.

The typical firm holds under GBP 10,000 in net assets

Median net assets sit at just GBP 4,882, and 20,592 firms report a balance sheet between zero and GBP 10,000. This is not a sign of a struggling profession. A one-person company that pays its profits out as dividends keeps very little on the balance sheet by design, so net assets say more about how these firms are structured than about how much they earn. The 4,975 firms with negative net assets are largely directors' loan accounts, not distress.

Nine in ten firms file accounts that hide their turnover

Only 2,611 firms - about 5% - disclose turnover in their accounts at all. The other 95% file under the micro-entity or small-company regime, which lets them file an abbreviated balance sheet and omit the profit-and-loss account entirely. Where turnover is shown, the median is GBP 34,698. It is a reminder that Companies House tells you a company exists and files, but rarely what it actually turns over.

Cite: 95% of UK accountancy firms file accounts abbreviated enough to disclose no turnover. Source: Verified Accountants, The Finances of UK Accountancy Firms (July 2026).

How much cash they hold

Among the 21,459 firms that report cash at bank, the median holding is GBP 9,171 - again consistent with small, owner-managed practices that distribute profit rather than bank it. Read alongside our State of UK Accountants report, which covers sector size, geography and firm age, this is the fullest public picture of the profession we know of.

Method and sources

Built from iXBRL financial statements filed at Companies House (Open Government Licence), parsed to standard concepts and reduced to each firm's most recent filed period. Restricted to the 71,418 firms that clear our real-accountancy publishing bar; 47,822 of them (67%) have parsed accounts on file. Figures are balance-sheet values as filed and are not adjusted for directors' remuneration, dividends or loan accounts, so net assets understate the economic activity of an owner-managed firm. Counts are floors where a concept is not universally filed. Data as of July 2026. Explore the underlying records: browse accountants by town.