Top 50+50 2022: Data highlights significant fee income growth across the industry due to increased client demand

The wider UK economy continues to struggle in the wake of the pandemic, but increased client demand for accounting and advisory services saw firms report significant fee income growth in 2022.  

According to Accountancy Age’s Top 50+50 2022, average industry fee income grew by 15.5%, compared to 8.29% last year – representing a seven percentage point increase.    

Maureen Penfold, chair at Moore UK, attributes the growth in fee income across the industry to a “bigger need” from clients for assistance. 

Penfold says there is a growing need from clients for their trusted advisers during what has been an arduous past few years. 

“By focusing on what clients want, it creates those opportunities to deliver more advisory services,” she says.      

When businesses face adversity, their first instinct is to go to their “trusted adviser,” she adds.  

The first six months of the pandemic provided many obstacles for businesses to overcome, with Abi Brown, partner and chief growth officer at Cooper Parry, ensuring the firm provided its clients with “timely and constructive advice” during that period.   

Brown says Cooper Parry are now working with an expanding number of larger and “more sophisticated clients” as part of their advisory services. 

The Office for Budget Responsibility judged that the UK is already in recession during Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn statement, with Brown noting that Cooper Parry has plenty of experienced experts to assist clients through this period.  

Staying connected through “regular contact and asking relevant and value adding questions is a key factor in helping them [clients] during a recession,” says Brown.  

Audit assistance expanding  

Brown explains how average fees in audit are being “impacted by both general inflationary pressure and an ever-increasing focus on the management of regulatory and commercial risk” which is leading to a significant increase in workload.    

“A big part of our profession is audit and that’s needed a lot more time and energy on each job,” says Penfold.  

“So there has been a sort of absorption, to produce the same audited numbers which takes more time and therefore more cost,” she adds. This has contributed to Moore UK’s fee income rising to £192.51m. 

To read the full 50+50 2022 report, click here. 

Accountancy Age’s latest research seeks to gather insight into how accountancy practices are structuring their advisory arms, the demand for certain areas of advisory, and who these additional services are being costed.  

To take part in this research, please click here