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Briefing
Graduate hiring and how juniors learn the trade in law and accounting
- Law and accounting
- Graduate hires
- How juniors learn
At large law and accounting firms the bottom layer is shrinking: US firms with more than 500 lawyers hired 540 fewer graduates, and the Big Four are recruiting more AI specialists than auditors. 71 per cent of professionals say new starters need extra guidance.
This briefing has not been updated for more than three months. Check the figures against the source before you use them.
Compiled with AI from public sources, with the source for every figure. Key figures labelled Checked have been compared with the source by a person. How that works
Key figures
- 71%of 1,816 professionals in law, tax, audit and compliance say new starters need guidance from experienced colleagues.Thomson Reuters InstituteNot yet checked
- 1.7 yearsmore is what legal professionals expect a new starter to need before judging reliably; tax advisers expect a year less.Thomson Reuters InstituteNot yet checked
- 540fewer graduates from the class of 2025 were hired by US firms with more than 500 lawyers.NALPNot yet checked
- 4%fewer students on the audit route at three professional bodies in 2025, while the UK and Irish total rose slightly.Financial Reporting CouncilNot yet checked
What the sources say
The Financial Times analysed more than fifty thousand public job ads from Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Accountant.nl, the news site of the Dutch professional body for accountants (NBA), reported the findings in Dutch in May 2026. Roles requiring AI skills made up almost 7 per cent of vacancies in 2025, more than three times the share when ChatGPT launched in 2022. Audit roles had been falling for some time and were just under 3 per cent in 2025. According to the FT, AI removes the need for some junior roles, which puts pressure on the sector’s pyramid shape. Big Four HR staff told the paper that recruitment for the assurance practice is also growing.
In US law, NALP tracks the first jobs of almost all graduates of accredited law schools, ten months after they graduate. For the class of 2025, measured on 16 March 2026, private practice hired some 940 fewer graduates than a year earlier. The largest fall was at firms with more than 500 lawyers, which took on about 540 fewer new starters. Their share of all law firm jobs fell for the second year running, to 33.2 per cent. The class itself was also smaller, and 92.8 per cent found work. NALP gives no cause for the fall.
In accountancy, the UK regulator, the FRC, sees a mixed picture. Student numbers in the UK and Ireland rose by 0.9 per cent in 2025 to 156,367, but are 3.1 per cent below 2021. The number of students on the audit route fell by 4 per cent to 26,372, and the number of registered audit firms by 9 per cent. Fee growth at the UK Big Four slowed to 0.6 per cent in 2025, after more than 11 per cent in 2022 and 2023. The report draws no link with AI.
How new starters then learn the job is the question Thomson Reuters put to 1,816 professionals in law, tax, audit, accounting, compliance and risk in 62 countries in March and April 2026. Seven in ten say new starters need structured support from experienced colleagues to learn the skills AI threatens to take away. Legal professionals expect it to take 1.7 years longer before a new starter’s judgement can be relied on; tax advisers expect to gain a year. According to the report, most AI training teaches what the tools do and rarely when to trust, check or reject the output. That judgement develops in practice, alongside experienced colleagues. See also the briefing Entry-level jobs for young workers in AI-exposed occupations, which shows the same pattern across the whole US labour market.
How solid is this? Four organisations report a narrower base or a changing learning route in 2026, but they measure different things in different countries. Only the FT and professionals’ expectations link it to AI; NALP and the FRC do not, and there is no measurement yet for the Netherlands.
For the leadership team
A firm built on a broad base of juniors earns its fees and trains its people with the same staff. If AI takes over part of that work, the balance between junior and senior changes, and with it the route by which people learn the trade. The question for the table is whether the training model has been adapted to the new ratio, or whether only the intake has been adjusted.
Sources
- Financial Reporting CouncilKey Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession 2026
- NALPStrong Entry-Level Legal Employment Persists Despite Sharp Drop in Federal Government and Public Interest Hiring
The largest decrease in hiring occurred in firms of more than 500 lawyers, which hired about 540 fewer graduates this year.
- Thomson Reuters InstituteFuture of Professionals Report 2026: When the AI strategy doesn't reach the desk
Seventy-one percent of professionals believe early-career roles need structured support from experienced peers to develop the skills AI risks displacing.
- Accountant.nl (NBA), based on the Financial TimesFT: Big four bieden inmiddels meer vacatures aan voor AI-specialisten dan voor accountants
We summarise in our own words and quote no more than one sentence per source. Read the original: there is more in it. How we use sources.
Academic research
- Stockholm University · Jönsson et al.Rethinking learning and careers in professional service firms in a new digital landscape: From ladder to lattice
- Skidmore College · Li and GoelGenerative Artificial Intelligence in the Big 4: Auditor Adoption and Its Implications for Audit Quality
- University of Groningen · Liu et al.What Can a Business School Do When Generative Artificial Intelligence Replaces Entry-Level Graduate Jobs?
Academic articles on the same phenomenon, no more than a year old at the last search, from universities in Europe and North America, found through the open database OpenAlex. These articles count towards the publications per month; the text and key figures above are based on the sources. How we choose the articles.
How this briefing has been updated
Title now describes the topics; previously “The firm's base is narrowing and the learning route shifts with it” (AI)
Added 3 articles from universities in Europe and North America (via OpenAlex). (AI)
First draft based on NALP, the FRC, Thomson Reuters and an FT analysis via Accountant.nl. NALP and the FRC draw no link with AI; that link comes only from the FT and from professionals' expectations. Dutch figures are missing. (AI)