International Women’s Day is just around the corner, and we’ll soon see the biggest accountancy firms declare the positive work they’ve done to drive gender parity over the last 12 months—as they say every year. But one of the biggest caps on real change will continue to fly under the radar: busy season culture, which alienates women across our sector.
The good news is that a solution is staring at us in the face: Ramp up and deploy the support already available around that period. This approach would give us a chance of plugging the female talent drain.
I don’t mean to underplay the enormous progress that has been made across the accountancy sector. Women have greater opportunities and clearer pathways today than they did 20 years ago, but there’s still work to be done—and the figures show we’re a long way from true parity.
In the UK, for example, a healthy stream of female talent is entering the sector, with the top professional bodies—the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants—made up of 43% and 59% women, respectively. Based on those figures, you might presume at least half of all partners in the UK were also women. But you’d be wrong.
In 2024, just 17% of partners at UK sub-200-staff firms and 26% at larger firms were women. That’s a massive discrepancy—not just a leaky pipeline, but a pipeline with a massive gash that is hemorrhaging female talent at an alarming rate.
A combination of factors is pushing these accountants away, but busy season culture is one of the most consequential.
Accountancy is cyclical. We’re hit with intense bursts of work at the same points each year, where it’s all hands on deck. You’re lost in a whirlwind of client communications—running from meeting to meeting, supporting people who are facing difficult business choices, or helping others plan for another year of growth. The pressure and stress compound with each promotion you take, too.
This is tough for anyone to deal with, but it’s a major push factor for women, who have been proven to spend up to 2 1/2 more hours on unpaid care work than men each day. Women are more likely to have others relying on them in their personal lives, from children to elderly relatives. Signing up for more responsibility at work during these hectic periods, when one has additional pressures to consider, isn’t an attractive prospect and seems unfeasible for many.
This is a fundamental societal issue and it will take more than a few changes in the accountancy sector to redistribute the unpaid work burden. But that doesn’t mean firms should be let off the hook. We have a responsibility to support women around these key moments in the accountancy calendar. It’s the only way we can hope to patch up the pipeline.
Many firms are trying by offering initiatives that help women find, commit to, and follow the road to leadership roles. I’ve personally benefited and can say firsthand how transformational initiatives such as mentorship programs can be. They’ve played a pivotal role in my journey toward partnership, so I fully support the programs and policies already out there.
Employee resource groups, female leadership courses, remote working, and flexible hour policies also shouldn’t be underestimated. These initiatives have helped us make progress over the last couple of decades, but I do think we could squeeze even more impact out of them, and we must to move toward full and proper equity.
It all comes down to timing. Many of these programs and policies currently exist in the ether, with women having to seek them out at random points in their careers. Many forget they are on offer at all and uptake is often limited, so the programs rarely reach their full potential. Deploying these programs strategically, ramping up their capacity, and increasing communication about them before and during busy season would give them a far bigger impact.
Those are the periods when women, bogged down by other responsibilities outside of work, are most at risk of stepping back from their jobs or leaving the profession altogether. Additional support, some well-timed mentorship, or expanded remote work options could make all the difference.
Female accountants aren’t getting enough of this support; it’s one of the major factors holding the sector back and keeping women out of positions of authority. And we must address it sooner rather than later.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.
Author Information
Katie Collin is a partner at Ramsay Brown, a chartered specialist medical accountancy firm that provides tax and accounting services for the UK’s medical sector.
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