UK tax practice market report highlights: Personal tax and trusts

Earlier in the year we released our UK tax practice market report and salary guide 2023-2024, highlighting the different areas of tax. Each area contained their own market update, including the current and forecasted challenges and opportunities, and the most popular portion, the salary data. Following on from the success of the report, we decided to launch a series of articles to dive even further into the data we collected from the survey, broken down into these different areas of tax. These articles take a closer look at topics such as flexible and hybrid working arrangements, benefits packages and DEI.

Private client market

The private client tax market remains candidate short within the accountancy firms. As with most of the tax market, salaries within private client tax have increased significantly over the past 12 months, however in the first half of 2023 we have not seen salaries continuing to rise at the same rate. We have, however, seen firms look to attract key talent through offering creative flexible working solutions. For most roles, businesses have considered part-time talent for full-time roles and offered flexibility around working hours, whether this be
shorter days or altered start/finish times. In addition, hybrid working and the opportunity to work from home has meant firms can consider a broader talent
pool as individuals do not have to travel to the office as much and are therefore willing to travel further.

We can see that tax professionals are still in favour of the hybrid working format, with an equal majority of 30% in favour of two or three days per week in the office.

We can also see further from these results, that Tuesday reigned triumph in being the chosen day for professionals to attend the office, with 74% of our total respondents selecting this as their top option. This was followed by 61% opting for Wednesday and Thursdays as their second preferences.

Trusts market

Over the last six months, we have seen a consistent stream of trust opportunities, predominantly for Manager and above. Hires in practice, family office and law firms are still consistent with salaries generally being comparable across the sectors however demand is generally higher to move in-house as the perception is that there is a better work life balance.

For further information on the market, you can download our UK tax practice market report and salary guide. Alternatively, if you would like to discuss the contents of this article in greater detail or have a conversation about your career or hiring needs, get in touch with Charlie Maitland.