How Global Demographics will impact the recruitment strategy for your accountancy firm

How global demographics will impact the recruitment strategy for your accountancy firm. 

Yes, you read that correctly.

The world’s changing demographics are at the heart our forward-looking plans for our firm.

Back in 2021, the UK age demographics went something like this:

Aged 0 – 14 – 18% of the population

Aged 15-64 – 63% of the population

Aged 65+ - 19% of the population 

With an ageing population, over the next few years, an increasing number of working age people in the UK will retire. Some may work longer, but it’s likely that many will retire, leaving even more unfilled roles in the UK market.

Contrast this with India, where the statistics look something like this:

Aged 0-14 – 26% of the population

Aged 15-64 – 68% of the population

Aged 65+ - 7% population

Whilst on the face of it, it may look like the % in the middle bracket of aged 15-64 looks similar to the UK, there are 2 key significant differences.

The forecast 2030 chart highlights the first point clearly.

Source:  https://www.population-trends-asiapacific.org/data/IND

1. By 2030 the vast majority in the bulge bracket of 15-64, will still be pretty young with the bulk of the population at the lower end of the age range in India.

2. The size of the Indian population is circa 1.4 billion currently, whilst the UK is around 68 million, around 5% of India’s. A massive difference in sheer size.

So what does this mean for your accountancy firm?

In my view, this means we are just at the beginning of a recruitment crisis across ageing western markets. As more and more people retire, the rate of growth in the lower age of populations just cannot keep up with the retirees. 

Whilst there is a strong argument that technology will replace a proportion of the roles in accountancy, accountancy firms still need good people – period. 

As I have personally experienced, it’s increasingly hard to find the good people in the UK as the pool size diminishes.

This means, to hire good people in a competitive market, one will have to pay top dollar for a team member, which will of course have an inflationary effect on the prices your firm would charge.

So apart from paying more for a UK/US team member, what are the other available options? 

Well, I made a decision about 2 years ago that I wanted to have our own offshore operation in India. After years of using third party firms, I felt I could do it myself.

With strong Indian roots, a love of everything Indian, despite people telling me to get anything done in India is very difficult, I just had to do it. 

Like many small to medium size accountancy firms, I was having no luck with building the right team in the UK, so I just had to start with a blank sheet of paper in India, the land of my ancestry. 

I did it, and have not looked back at all. 

All the Big 4 have offshore operations in India, and with a growing number of firms, it’s pretty clear that much of the resourcing for future financial roles will come from the Indian sub-continent. With offshoring and AI, many financial roles will change, and with a lower cost base, with many capable accountants in India, I envisage the youthful Indian market to take many of these roles in the next 5 plus years. 

Well, whilst many of the junior roles, to date, have been taken by offshore accountants, as communication skills, and technology improves, some of the higher value roles will also be serviced by offshore accountants.

You have been warned.

So how can you and your firm benefit from this?

You have two options: 

1. Find an offshoring/outsourcing firm that you can work with. Not all are equal.

2. Build your own offshoring firm in India, like we did.

We can help with both of these, just drop me a message and I hope to speak with you soon or book a call here: