Is there a talent shortage in corporate finance and accounting? While labor shortages in the CPA field have been well documented in recent years, a new survey by the nonprofit Controllers Council aims to take stock of talent prospects for the corporate finance and accounting market.
Conducted from May to July, the survey of 300 executive-level F&A leaders showed some organizations are indeed experiencing talent shortages in the area, with caveats. For instance, while 10% of respondents said they’re facing “significant shortages,” 33% said they face only “minor shortages.” What’s more, 53% of respondents said they face no talent shortages in corporate F&A at all.
“These results suggest a cooling labor market and possibly a rebalancing between employer expectations and candidate availability,” the Controllers Council report stated. “This improvement may reflect a combination of more stable hiring practices, expanded recruiting strategies and shifts in market participation following widespread changes in workplace models and job mobility.”
Respondents’ reported hiring plans also suggest, despite any talent shortages, they’re taking a “measured approach” amid economic uncertainty, according to the report. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they plan to maintain their current finance and accounting staffing levels, up from 64% who said the same last year and 61% which did so in 2023. Just about a quarter (24%) of respondents said they plan to increase their finance and accounting staff, down from 32% last year. Only 5% of respondents plan to decrease staff this year.
For Neil Brown, executive director of the Controllers Council, that shows a “subtle but demonstrable shift from an employees’ to an employers’ market.”
“First, when you look at hiring plans in the last 3 years, hiring increases were 8 points lower YoY between 2025 and 2024, and 5 points YoY lower from 2024 to 2023, with decreased hiring growing each year,” he said in an email. “Second, salary increases are decreasing despite shortages.”
Though the council has conducted similar studies in the past, this is the first time the organization has specifically asked about talent shortages in corporate F&A. Brown believes it’s the first report of its kind to do so, and hopes it will serve as a benchmark study in the future.
The ongoing hunt for controllers
The council detailed a few notable nuances around the types of corporate F&A roles that organizations are trying to fill. Controllers and assistant controllers again ranked as the most difficult roles to fill, with 34% of respondents citing these jobs as the most challenging to recruit.
Bookkeepers and financial reporting roles weren’t far behind, with 27% of respondents saying they’re the most challenging to fill.
“Controllers are ranked most challenging to recruit three years running,” Brown said in his email. “A high percentage of controllers have a CPA and public accounting experience, so age demographics and retirements drive a portion of the shortage. The controller role is also getting more complex, with AI and technology certainly part of the expanding roles.”
For what it’s worth, there are signs the CPA crunch could be easing. May data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showed that undergraduate enrollment in accounting majors reached a five-year high in the spring 2025 semester.
And, in a bid to reinvigorate the CPA pipeline, the AICPA and NASBA last month officially gave their blessing to the 120-hour certification pathway, though that will still need to be approved by individual states.
