As part of the publication of the 2026 Audit Monitoring Report, ICAEW’s Quality Assurance Department will present two webinars to expand on the findings shared in the report. Most auditors should find valuable content in both sessions, whether it’s directly relevant to the activities of your firm or contributes to a wider understanding of issues across UK audit practices.
Upcoming webinars
Our first webinar, 'Key themes, risks and what good looks like', will be held on 29 April 2026 (1pm-2pm). You can register for this below. Our second webinar, 'ISQM 1', will be held in September 2026.
Our role as the UK’s largest recognised supervisory body for non-Public Interest Entity (PIE) audits continues to focus on improvement-led regulation, helping firms enhance audit quality in the public interest.
2025 monitoring results
- 375 audit monitoring reviews completed
- 6% required significant improvement
- 73% of 790 audits reviewed were good or generally acceptable
We were particularly pleased to see the figure for audits requiring significant improvements fell to 6% from 10%... This is the brightest picture since 2022.
Key risks to audit quality: growth, technology, staff
Over the past five years, multiple quality risks have surfaced in audit firms and these risks must continue to be addressed by firms through effective quality management to safeguard the future of the UK audit profession.
Risk monitoring – audit firms and portfolios
Our Audit Risk team enables us to identify emerging risks within our audit firm population. The primary objective is to check that firms are aware of, and effectively manage, potential risks in their audit portfolio.
Changes to the UK Audit Regulations from 1 June 2025 require notification of the movement of certain audits within 21 days of audit acceptance. We received over 100 notifications from firms in the period to 31 December 2025 and have either had, or expect to have, further contact with firms about these new audits in c. 50% of cases.
Audit cessations data that ICAEW receives from firms suggests that there has been more stability in the audit market in 2025, with the number of cessations we received down by 23% compared to 2024.
