A recent article in The Times highlighted a growing challenge for the accountancy profession: attracting graduates isn’t the problem. Retaining qualified talent is.

Increasingly, accountants are stepping away from traditional practice roles and moving into positions that offer faster progression, broader responsibilities and, in many cases, stronger earning potential.

From my perspective recruiting finance leaders into fintech and other high-growth businesses, this isn’t surprising. It’s something we see every day.

But I think the story is slightly different from how it’s sometimes framed.

Accountants aren’t abandoning finance. They’re moving toward roles where their work has more visibility, more influence and a clearer commercial impact.

And increasingly, those opportunities are appearing in fintech companies, technology-led organisations and Private Equity-backed businesses where finance leaders are expected to shape the business, not just report on it.

The shift toward strategic finance roles

Many finance professionals still start their careers in practice. It remains one of the best places to build technical grounding.

But once they qualify, the question often becomes: what next?

The accountants I speak to increasingly want roles where they can:

• Influence business decisions

• Work directly with founders, CEOs or investors

• Lead transformation or scaling initiatives

• Actually see the commercial impact of their work

In other words, they want to be closer to the action

This reflects a broader shift in how finance functions operate today.

Across many of the CFOs and finance leaders I speak with, the role has expanded significantly over the last few years. Finance leaders are now expected not only to maintain financial discipline but also to:

• Improve forecasting accuracy in volatile markets

• Lead digital transformation and systems modernisation

• Support AI adoption within finance teams

• Strengthen governance and data infrastructure

All of this, quite often, without a proportionate increase in headcount.

So the remit of senior finance roles has become broader, more strategic and, frankly, more interesting than it was a decade ago.

Why fintech and high-growth businesses are attracting finance talent

The Times article points to fintech and technology careers as increasingly appealing alternatives to traditional practice roles.

There’s definitely truth in that. But the real draw is often less about brand and more about scope.

In many fintech businesses, finance teams sit right at the centre of growth strategy. They help leadership teams make decisions about:

• Capital allocation

• Scaling infrastructure

• Pricing models

• Regulatory requirements

• Sustainable growth

That proximity to decision-making is hugely attractive.

And the sector itself continues to expand rapidly. Industry analysis suggests the UK fintech market is expected to grow at close to 20% annually, reaching around £34.7bn in revenue by 2025–26. The industry now includes more than 1,600 companies employing over 76,000 people across the UK.

For finance professionals who want to operate closer to innovation and strategy, that environment can feel very different from traditional finance roles.

Flexibility matters more than ever

Another major factor influencing career moves is working culture.

Across the finance searches we run, hybrid working has largely settled around two to three days per week in the office.

Roles requiring four or five days in the office are becoming significantly harder to hire for. Fully remote roles are still rare, but when they do appear they attract huge interest.

External data tells the same story. Research from LinkedIn suggests around 40% of UK job listings now advertise hybrid roles, while over 40% of job applications target those positions.

In short, flexibility is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s often a deciding factor.

And many fintechs, scale-ups and investor-backed businesses are simply further ahead when it comes to modern working models. They tend to have flatter structures and more outcome-driven cultures, where performance is measured by results rather than desk time.

Private Equity roles are accelerating careers

We see a similar trend in Private Equity-backed businesses.

These environments continue to attract experienced finance leaders because the remit is rarely limited to traditional financial management.

Instead, CFOs and Finance Directors are often responsible for:

• Transformation programmes

• Acquisitions and integrations

• ERP and systems modernisation

• Operational efficiency initiatives

• Value creation ahead of exit

It’s demanding work, but it’s also the kind of environment where careers can accelerate quickly.

For finance professionals who want bigger responsibility and bigger impact, it’s a compelling proposition.

AI is raising expectations for finance leaders

Technology is also reshaping finance careers.

In conversations with finance and transformation leaders across the market, AI now comes up in almost every discussion.

Research from Stanton House found that 60% of finance and transformation leaders see AI as strategically critical. Yet only 12% say their organisations have a fully developed AI strategy in place.

Even more strikingly, 77% report that their organisation still doesn’t have a fully implemented AI governance framework.

That gap matters, particularly for finance teams.

Finance functions sit at the centre of data quality, governance and reporting. As organisations adopt AI, CFOs and finance leaders are increasingly responsible for ensuring that the underlying data, controls and frameworks are strong enough to support it.

Which again reinforces how much more strategic the finance function has become.

The real story

The shift highlighted in The Times article isn’t a decline in the profession.

It’s an evolution.

Finance professionals today play a far more influential role than they did even ten years ago. They’re helping companies scale, advising leadership teams, guiding investment decisions and navigating technological change.

For ambitious accountants, the opportunities aren’t shrinking.

If anything, they’re expanding, particularly in sectors where finance is expected to shape strategy and drive outcomes.

Accountants aren’t leaving finance.

They’re simply moving to where finance matters most.

For more insight: download our salary guide

Many of the themes explored here, including hybrid working expectations, the growing strategic remit of finance leaders, AI adoption and shifting hiring trends, are explored in more detail in the Stanton House Accountancy & Finance Salary Guide 2026.

The guide brings together salary benchmarks, hiring insights and market trends from across the UK finance leadership market.

If you’re interested in understanding how finance roles, skills and expectations are evolving across the profession, you can download the full guide by completing the form below.