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Statistics on accountancy firms by fee income/turnover

Research guide

Published: 28 Oct 2014 Updated: 11 Jul 2023 Update History

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Sources for statistics on UK accountancy firms by fee income/turnover including data on the fee income split.

Fee income

Top firms

Top 50+50 Accountancy firms
Annual survey from Accountancy Age which provides figures for the UK fee income for the top 100 accountancy firms. The full tables for some years also show the fee income split.

Recent surveys include:

Older surveys may be available from the ICAEW Library & Information Service which holds a complete run of Accountancy Age.

Accountancy Daily Top 75 firms
The Accountancy Daily Top 75 league table of UK accountancy firms provides details of the fee income for each firm and total fee income for the top 75. In some cases the article has included additional tables providing comparisons of the fee income split. The league table is published annually in Accountancy Daily.

Prior to 2019, the league table was published in Accountancy magazine. The 2003 to 2018 editions can be accessed through the Accountancy Daily website at Top UK firms. Older surveys may be available from the ICAEW Library & Information Service which holds a complete run of Accountancy magazine.

 

Turnover

All firms

UK Business: Size, Activity and Location
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publication UK Business: Size, Activity and Location provides statistics on the number of firms in ten size brackets, depending on their turnover (0-49, 50-99, 100-249, 250-499, 500-999, 1000-1999, 2000-4999, 5000-9999, 10000-49999, 50000+ in thousands of pounds sterling).

Recent statistics can be accessed via the UK business: activity, size and location dataset. Data from older releases is available via the National Archives web site. If comparing figures from different releases, please note that various changes have been made to the coverage of businesses over the years. See the publication's methodology for details.

Turnover figures used by ONS are based on VAT returns for a 12 month period for the majority of traders. For more information see the turnover section of the UK Business: Size, Activity and Location methodology. These statistics record both VAT and PAYE based enterprises using the UK SIC code for accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy. As such, they include all firms with this classification and not just the member firms of the CCAB bodies.

2017 onwards

The figures are published in Table 9 - Number of VAT and/or PAYE based enterprises by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) class and turnover sizebands. You will need to scroll down to find UK SIC code 6920 for accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy.

2014 - 2016

The figures for accountancy firms are published in dataset 'UKBGb Enterprise by 4 Digit SIC and Turnover size band'. The table shows statistics for a number of sectors and you will need to scroll right to find the appropriate UK SIC code for accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy (6920 in UK SIC 2007).

In 2015 the coverage of businesses was increased to include a population of solely PAYE-based businesses that were previously excluded, for more details see Improving the coverage of UK Business, Activity, Size and Location.

2008-2013

The figures are published in Table B3.2: United Kingdom - Number of VAT and/or PAYE based enterprises in all industries by turnover size band. The table shows statistics for a number of sectors and you will need to scroll down to the appropriate UK SIC code for accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy (7412 in UK SIC 2003 - as used in the 2008 publication, 6920 in UK SIC 2007 - as used from the 2009 publication onwards).

1998-2007

Older editions of this publication are also available but it should be noted that the 2008 publication was 'the first to include businesses based on PAYE employers that are not also registered for VAT, extending the scope from the previous VAT-based tables.' This means that the figures from earlier editions cannot be compared directly with the 2008 edition or any subsequent editions.

Statistics on the accountancy market
Page from the ICAEW Library which contains sources for statistics covering total turnover for the UK accountancy sector.

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