Australia's accountant shortage in numbers, and what firms are doing about it
Australia is short of accountants, and the official list now says so for part of the profession. The 2026 Occupation Shortage List, published in October, keeps taxation accountants and external auditors in shortage. CA ANZ expects a gap of about 6,000 accountants by 2030, and research it commissioned puts the shortfall across accounting, audit and finance at almost 18,000 by 2035.
Below are the numbers behind that, where they come from, why it's happening, and the range of things firms are doing about it.
Serkan Honeine, Co-founder, CoSauce
Published · Last updated
What the official lists say
Jobs and Skills Australia rates occupations each year in its Occupation Shortage List (Jobs and Skills Australia). The 2026 edition keeps taxation accountants and external auditors on the list. General accountants were rated no shortage, which CA ANZ calls a qualified rating and disputes. It had asked for a national shortage rating on all three roles and says its members still struggle to fill general accounting jobs (CA ANZ, 22 October 2026).
Migration is a separate list. Accountant (General), Management Accountant, Taxation Accountant and External Auditor are all on the Core Skills Occupation List in force since 7 December 2024 (Federal Register of Legislation). That list feeds the Skills in Demand visa, which replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage visa, both subclass 482 (Accountants Daily; Home Affairs). So a firm can sponsor an accountant from overseas. Finding one is another matter.
What happens when firms try to hire
The clearest picture comes from CA ANZ's survey of 159 members who advertised vacancies during 2025 (Accountants Daily). In the survey's analysis, a fill rate below 67% indicates a high likelihood of shortage. Four of the six roles surveyed were under it.
| Role | Vacancies filled | Average days to fill |
|---|---|---|
| Internal auditors | 40% | About 83 |
| External auditors | 49% | 113 |
| General accountants | 49% | 79 |
| Tax accountants | 55% | 77 |
| Management accountants | 75% | 57 |
| Finance managers | 85% | 32 |
The main reason given for unfilled roles was a lack of experienced professionals, then a lack of specialist skills, particularly in tax, then fewer graduates. That matches what firm owners tell us. The hard one to find is the person with four years of tax experience.
How big the gap is
About 215,500 people work as accountants in Australia, and the occupation adds around 5,800 jobs a year (Jobs and Skills Australia profile). In its pre-budget submission to Treasury, CA ANZ estimated the country will be about 6,000 accountants short by 2030 (Accountants Daily, 3 February 2026).
The longer view is worse. Oxford Economics Australia, commissioned by CA ANZ, projects a shortfall of 17,900 accounting, audit and finance professionals by 2035. Around 108,000 people are expected to leave the profession over the decade (CA ANZ, 10 September 2026). The gap is uneven: 9,200 intermediate finance managers, 4,400 junior external auditors (52% below demand), 3,500 junior general accountants and 760 senior tax accountants (Accountants Daily, 14 September 2026).
Fewer people are studying accounting
Accounting course completions have fallen 61% since 2018, and domestic enrolments are below half their 2018 peak (CA ANZ). CPA Australia's submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Migration puts numbers on who comes out the other end (Financial Newswire). Its reading of 2024 Department of Education data:
| Pipeline step | People |
|---|---|
| Domestic accounting graduates, 2024 | 1,528 |
| International accounting graduates, 2024 | 5,492 |
| International graduates who stay, if about 30% do | About 1,650 |
| Available to Australian employers in 2025, from the 2024 cohort | About 3,200 |
| Net growth CPA Australia says the workforce needs each year | About 4,000 |
CPA Australia estimates about 70% of international students leave after graduating. That leaves 3,000 to 3,500 graduates from the 2024 cohort available to the Australian workforce in 2025. CPA Australia says the next decade needs net growth of about 4,000 a year. The middle rows are our arithmetic from its figures. The conclusion is theirs. Cost is part of the cause. Between 2020 and 2026 the maximum student contribution for accounting study rose by $6,244 while the Commonwealth contribution fell by $882 (Accountants Daily).
Migration brings in fewer accountants than it used to
Skilled migration outcomes for accountants and auditors have nearly halved over the past decade (CA ANZ). One pathway has closed outright. The Accounting Professional Year Program, which gave international graduates a route into local work, saw enrolments fall from 7,122 in 2018 to 340 in 2024. The three accounting bodies stopped taking new enrolments on 5 March 2025 and wound the program up by 1 May 2026 (CPA Australia).
Firms feel it. In a Robert Half survey, 65% of accounting firms said the market relied more on overseas talent than five years earlier. 48% had hired a skilled overseas applicant and would again. 29% had hired one and would not repeat it (Accounting Times). Sponsorship is open to you. It is slow and the results vary.
Pay, and the work itself
Accountants earn above the all-occupations median, $2,003 a week full time against $1,852 in May 2025 (Jobs and Skills Australia). The trouble for firms is where the money sits. SEEK's job-ad data puts the average advertised accountant salary in the accounting industry at $83,812, and in mining and resources at $119,862 (SEEK, November 2026). Robert Half's 2026 guide lists a financial accountant's starting salary at $95,000, $105,000 or $115,000 depending on the percentile (Robert Half). Those figures are measured differently, so don't line them up to the dollar. The direction is the one practice owners describe: a good senior leaves for an industry job that pays more and ends at five.
It isn't only pay. In CA ANZ's earlier survey, respondents named retention problems from competition and regulatory burden alongside the lack of applicants (Accounting Times). Compliance work with hard deadlines is a tough sell to a 22-year-old weighing accounting against finance.
What firms are doing about it
There's no single fix. Here is the range we see, with what the evidence says about each.
- Paying more. Robert Half says 71% of employers expect the economic outlook to push salaries up, and 34% cite scarcity of qualified talent as a reason to offer more. Most negotiations for standard roles still land within 0 to 10% above the offer. Hays' FY26/27 guide found 82% of businesses reported skills shortages in the past year, yet 42% of employees saw a pay cut, no change, or a rise under 2.4% (Hays). Pay rises work. Billing rates rarely keep up.
- Flexible and hybrid work. Hays reports 51% of employees describe their workplace as hybrid, across all industries. Insist on five days in the office and you're competing against most other employers.
- Technology and AI. CPA Australia's Business Technology Report found 8% of Australian businesses had cut or stopped filling entry-level accounting roles because of AI tools. Australian businesses were also the most likely in Asia-Pacific to plan AI investment in 2026 (CPA Australia). CPA's Gavan Ord warned that leaning too hard on AI could leave businesses with a "knowledge and experience chasm". Our view is similar. Automate the routine checks, and keep training juniors, or the senior shortage in 2035 is yours.
- Sponsoring migrants. Possible under the Core Skills Occupation List, with the mixed results above.
- Outsourcing and offshoring. Firms are moving bookkeeping, tax preparation and workpapers to teams overseas. One partner told Accountants Daily his firm offshored a decade ago because of a staff shortage. Another warned that offshore staff need training on Australian concepts such as superannuation and GST (Accountants Daily). Both are right. Offshoring takes preparation off your seniors' desks. An onshore reviewer still has to sign off. We've written about when in-house is the better choice and what offshore accounting costs.
Where we fit, so you can weigh it: CoSauce runs outsourced bookkeeping and tax preparation teams in South Africa for Australian firms. The people are employed by us, work inside your own Xero and XPM under named logins, prepare the work, and your firm reviews and signs off. We go live in about four weeks and a co-founder joins your weekly review. The rest is in how we work. South Africa is eight hours behind Sydney, nine in daylight saving, so if you need someone answering clients through your morning, this isn't the fix for that.
Questions
Is there an accountant shortage in Australia right now?
For tax accountants and external auditors, yes, by the government's own 2026 list. For general accountants the list says no shortage, while CA ANZ's members report filling only 49% of those vacancies. Both can be true: the national data covers every employer, and public practice is where the gap bites.
Are accountants on Australia's skilled occupation list?
Yes. Accountant (General), Management Accountant, Taxation Accountant and External Auditor are all on the Core Skills Occupation List used for the Skills in Demand visa. CA ANZ, CPA Australia and the IPA assess the skills.
Will AI fix the accounting skills shortage?
Not on the evidence so far. CA ANZ's commissioned research expects AI to change the skills accountants need rather than reduce demand, and CPA Australia cautions against cutting the junior roles that produce the next seniors. AI shortens the routine work. Someone still has to know what the answer should look like.
Next step
If you've got a role that's been open for three months, book a call with me. Bring the job ad and the work it covers. We'll tell you which parts could be prepared offshore, which should stay with your team, and if the answer is "hire locally and wait", I'll say that too.