Accountant salary UK: what accountants really earn
The typical full-time accountant salary is £50,062. See the official ONS pay range, estimated monthly take-home pay and how it compares with the UK full-time median of £39,039.
How to read the official accountant salary figure
Accountant is a broad everyday label, but the official group on this page is narrower. It covers chartered and certified accountants, not every bookkeeper, accounts assistant, finance manager or finance director. That matters when you compare your own pay. Within this group, typical full-time salary is above the typical full-time UK pay and the higher published point is much further up.
The ONS has marked this estimate as reasonably precise rather than precise, so it deserves a little more caution than most pages in this set. Even so, it is a useful national guide for qualified accountants. Sector, location, practice versus industry, management responsibility and the stage reached after qualification can all move an individual salary away from the middle.
Which accounting jobs this figure covers
The official ONS group is chartered and certified accountants. That is narrower than the everyday word accountant, so matching the occupation correctly matters.
Good fit for this page
- Qualified chartered or certified accountants
- Practice, industry and public-sector roles that map to the qualified accountant group
- Employee salaries before separately valuing bonus or partnership profit
Use a different comparison for
- Bookkeepers, payroll administrators and accounts assistants
- Every finance manager or finance director automatically
- Self-employed practice turnover or partner drawings treated as a salary
Lower, typical and higher accountant pay
Only £7,301 separates the median from the published 60th percentile. A quick glance cannot show where your own pay sits inside that band or how close you are to the next salary point.
- Lower pay10th percentile£29,557
- Lower-middle pay25th percentile£38,696
- Typical payMedian£50,062
- Higher pay75th percentile£68,056
Moving from the median to the published 60th percentile is £7,301 gross a year, or about £355 more a month after standard tax and employee National Insurance.
Confirm the right occupation, place your salary against the official qualified-accountant range, and see take-home pay and True Wage in the same report.
From the median to the published 60th percentile is £7,301 gross a year, worth about £355 more a month after standard tax and employee National Insurance.
Every published accountant salary point
See every published salary point
| Pay point | Annual salary | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | £29,557 | Below the occupation midpoint |
| 20th percentile | £36,981 | Below the occupation midpoint |
| 25th percentile | £38,696 | Below the occupation midpoint |
| 30th percentile | £40,384 | Below the occupation midpoint |
| 40th percentile | £44,941 | Below the occupation midpoint |
| Median | £50,062 | The published midpoint |
| 60th percentile | £57,363 | Above the occupation midpoint |
| 70th percentile | £63,452 | Above the occupation midpoint |
| 75th percentile | £68,056 | Above the occupation midpoint |
| 80th percentile | £73,506 | Above the occupation midpoint |
The paid report estimates a position between two published points. It does not claim an exact ranking of every worker.
What the typical salary may look like after tax
At the typical accountant salary of £50,062, take-home is about £3,297 a month.
The estimate uses the standard Personal Allowance, Income Tax bands for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and employee National Insurance. It does not include pension, student loan, salary sacrifice or a different tax code. Scottish Income Tax is different.
What the accountant pay range shows
The lower published point is £29,557, the typical salary is £50,062, and the highest published point, the 80th percentile is £73,506. The simple average is £55,414, which is pulled upwards by higher salaries.
The higher end sits well above the typical salary, which is not surprising for a profession that spans newly qualified roles, specialist work and senior responsibility. The official group is useful for qualified accountants, but it should not be stretched to cover every finance job.
What usually changes qualified accountant pay
The range covers people at very different points after qualification and in very different types of work. A newly qualified audit senior and an experienced specialist with a team and client book should not be expected to sit at the same point.
Qualification and experience
Professional qualification is part of the scope of this ONS group. Time after qualification and the complexity of work often matter more than the word accountant in the title.
Practice or industry
Client practice, an in-house finance team, the public sector and consultancy bring different deadlines, commercial exposure and promotion routes.
Specialism
Audit, tax, forensic work, financial reporting, advisory and management accounting can carry different responsibilities and market demand.
Clients, teams and leadership
Owning major clients, signing off work, managing staff or moving towards partnership changes the job well beyond preparing a set of accounts.
Qualification, work and progression
The National Careers Service says private-practice accountants prepare accounts and tax returns, produce forecasts, audit records, advise clients and may investigate fraud. Entry can begin with a degree, an apprenticeship, on-the-job training or direct study with a professional body.
Professional routes include bodies such as ICAEW, ACCA, ICAS, CIMA and AIA. The exact route matters because a training contract may include study leave, exam fees and staged pay rises that are not obvious from the starting salary alone.
With experience, accountants may specialise in audit or forensic work, manage a practice team, move towards partnership, become a finance director or work as an independent consultant. Those destinations explain the long upper tail in the salary data.
What to check in an accountant offer
The value of an accountancy package often depends on training support and workload as well as base pay.
- Is the role qualified, part-qualified or a training position?
- Who pays exam fees, professional subscriptions and study leave?
- What are the busy-season hours, overtime expectations and bonus terms?
- Does the title match the real work, client responsibility and management duties?
Where the salary and industry information comes from
The pay figures are from the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14, 2025 provisional edition. They cover full-time employee jobs, and annual figures normally relate to people who have been in the same job for more than one year. They do not cover self-employed people.
| Official job group | Chartered and certified accountants. It does not cover every finance or accounts role. |
|---|---|
| Quality | ONS rates this estimate reasonably precise (CV above 5% and up to 10%). The published median CV is 6.5%. In plain English, this figure carries a little more uncertainty than the precise estimates on the other pages. |
| Jobs in the estimate | About 60,000 employee jobs |
| Career and role source | National Careers Service: Private practice accountant Qualification routes, duties, professional bodies and progression. View source |
Where ONS leaves a salary point blank, this page leaves it blank too. A missing top 10% figure is never filled with an estimate.
View the ONS salary tableCheck the 2026/27 tax and NI figures
Accountant salary questions
What is the typical accountant salary in the UK?
The ONS full-time median for accountants is £50,062. The simple average is £55,414. The median is the better starting point for a typical salary.
Is £50,062 a good salary for an accountant?
It is the official middle salary for full-time accountants. It is 28% higher than the UK full-time median of £39,039.
What do the best-paid accountants earn?
ONS does not publish the 90th percentile for this occupation. The highest available point is the 80th percentile at £73,506, so no top 10% figure is claimed.
How much is accountant take-home pay at the typical salary?
A standard 2026/27 estimate gives about £3,297 a month after Income Tax and employee National Insurance. Pension, student loan, salary sacrifice and tax-code changes are not included.