Firm leaders want a clear answer to whether the accounting talent shortage is easing, so they can plan staffing with some confidence. We hear a version of the question at nearly every conference we moderate, and the honest answer does not fit in a sentence. The shortage is changing shape, and the firms that plan well over the next five years will be the ones that understand where the pressure is moving.
The encouraging news comes first. Accounting enrollment at four-year colleges grew 8.9% this spring, according to an AICPA analysis of National Student Clearinghouse data, marking the third consecutive year of increases after nearly a decade of decline. A single strong year could be noise, while three in succession is a trend worth taking seriously and the clearest evidence yet that students see the profession differently than they did five years ago.
That matters a great deal for the long-term health of the profession. It matters much less for what a firm can do about hiring this year.
A student who chooses accounting today is four to six years away from becoming a licensed, experienced hire once the degree, the CPA exam, and experience requirements are complete. The enrollment recovery that began in 2024 will not meaningfully change the hiring market until late in this decade.
This point gets lost whenever an optimistic headline circulates. Rising enrollment is a leading indicator, and firms that build hiring plans around an improvement that has not yet reached the labor market are likely to be disappointed.
Current hiring conditions remain difficult. In Personiv's 2026 CFO Pulse Survey, 84% of finance and accounting leaders reported a talent shortage, with senior accountants at the top of the list of hardest roles to fill. CPA exam candidate numbers also remain well below where they stood a decade ago. Taken together, the picture is of a shortage that has not caught up with the pipeline's early recovery, and many firms are still feeling it acutely.
This is the part of the story that deserves more attention. Many firms responded to years of entry-level scarcity by offshoring compliance work and adopting AI aggressively. Those moves eased pressure at the bottom of the organization chart and created a new problem in the middle. The traditional path to manager relied on a steady flow of junior staff learning the work by doing it, and firms that automated or outsourced much of that work now have fewer people progressing toward manager roles.
This also explains why the problem appears to be easing in some firms. Part of the improvement comes from AI reducing how many entry-level people a firm needs, which changes the shape of the shortage without resolving it. A firm that no longer struggles to fill junior seats can still face serious trouble finding people ready to lead teams five years from now, and the difficulty employers report in recruiting senior accountants today is an early sign of that gap.
The firms that see this coming are rebuilding the apprenticeship that automation removed. They give junior and offshore-supported staff structured exposure to review work, client conversations, and supervision earlier than the old model did, because the hours of repetitive compliance work that once taught those skills are disappearing.
Relief is not arriving evenly. Larger firms that invested early in AI and outsourcing have the capital and scale to absorb the transition, and they are the most likely to feel the benefit first. Smaller, mid-sized, and rural firms, along with public sector employers, generally have less room to make those investments and remain more exposed to the hiring market as it stands today. In our view, much of this gap reflects timing more than a permanent divide, since the firms further along in adoption are simply seeing results sooner. Where does your firm sit on that curve?
The talent gap is not over, and it is not simply getting worse in a straight line either, which is what much of the conversation still assumes. The entry-level pressure that defined the last decade is beginning to ease, both because more students are choosing accounting and because AI is changing how many junior people a firm needs. Behind it, a less discussed gap is forming at the manager level. Firms that plan around that shape of the problem, rather than the entry-level story from five years ago, will be ready when the next part of the organization chart tightens.
For most firms, that means looking past next season's recruiting and asking who will be ready to manage teams and client relationships in 2030, and what the firm is doing now to develop them. Hollinden helps accounting and advisory firm leaders build strategic plans around what the data shows today rather than whichever headline circulated most recently. For more on developing that next tier of leaders, read The Leadership Gap in Consolidating Firms.
It depends on which part of the pipeline you examine. Four-year accounting enrollment rose 8.9% in spring 2026, the third straight year of growth according to an AICPA analysis of National Student Clearinghouse data. Current hiring remains difficult, with 84% of finance and accounting leaders in Personiv's 2026 CFO Pulse Survey reporting a talent shortage.
A student who chooses accounting today is typically four to six years from becoming a licensed, experienced hire after completing a degree, the CPA exam, and experience requirements. Enrollment gains that began in 2024 will not meaningfully affect the hiring market until later this decade.
Senior accountants top the list. In Personiv's 2026 CFO Pulse Survey, 43% of finance leaders named senior accountant as the hardest role to fill, followed by staff accountant at 26%.
It describes an emerging shortage of experienced staff and managers. As firms offshored or automated entry-level work, fewer junior employees moved through the path that traditionally developed managers, which leaves a gap in the middle of the organization even as entry-level pressure eases.
Both, depending on the level. AI reduces how many entry-level staff some firms need, and 63% of finance leaders in Personiv's 2026 survey said they use AI or automation to reduce hiring needs. Over time, fewer junior hires can also mean fewer people developing into experienced managers.