How many accountants are there in the UK?
The answer changes a lot depending on whether you mean qualified people, regulated firms or businesses doing accounts work.
| Figure | What it counts | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| 418,986 | Members of seven accountancy bodies (ACCA, Chartered Accountants Ireland, CIMA, CIPFA, ICAEW, ICAS and AIA) with a UK or Republic of Ireland address at 31 December 2025. People, not firms. AAT members are reported separately | Financial Reporting Council, Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession 2026 | 11 November 2026 |
| 14,428 | Registrations with status "Approved" and the Accountancy Service Provider sector marked in HMRC's Supervised Business Register, as downloaded today (our count of the file). These are the firms HMRC supervises because no professional body does. Tax advisers, bookkeepers and payroll agents are included | HMRC, Supervised Business Register | 11 November 2026 |
| 11,500 | ICAEW says it supervises and monitors "more than 11,500 firms" (figure as at 31 December 2025) | ICAEW, Who we are | 11 November 2026 |
| 3,421 | Firms registered to carry out statutory audit in the UK and Republic of Ireland at 31 December 2025, across ACCA, ICAEW, ICAS and Chartered Accountants Ireland. 1,538 of them have a single principal | Financial Reporting Council, Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession 2026 (figure 21) | 11 November 2026 |
| 41,270 | Workplaces (local units) registered for VAT or PAYE under SIC 69201, 69202 | ONS UK Business Counts 2026 | 2026 release |
The FRC total of 418,986 is a head count of qualified members, and most of them don't work in practice at all. They're finance directors, management accountants and public sector staff. If you're selling to people in finance roles, that's your market. If you're selling to accountancy firms, ignore it.
By body, the FRC's 2025 figures for members with a UK or Irish address are: ICAEW 143,845, ACCA 118,731, CIMA 85,789, ICAS 21,956. AAT, which trains accounting technicians and bookkeepers, had 49,876. Someone can belong to more than one body, so don't add these up.
For firms, the regulators each see part of the picture. ICAEW supervises its own member firms, ACCA and the other bodies supervise theirs, and HMRC picks up everyone else who offers accountancy services to clients. The HMRC and ICAEW figures above are the two largest pieces, but there's no published total that joins them up. The ONS figure counts workplaces under SIC 69201 (accounting and auditing) and 69202 (bookkeeping), so a firm with five offices counts five times.
One more reason the numbers don't line up: "accountant" on its own is not a protected title. ICAEW's own directory page describes the market as "an environment where anyone can call themselves an accountant". Plenty of one-person bookkeeping and tax return businesses trade as accountants without belonging to any body.
Can I get a free list of accountants?
Four official sources will give you accountants' names for nothing. Here's what each actually shows and what its terms say.
HMRC Supervised Business Register
Limited marketing use
A spreadsheet (ODS format) of every business HMRC supervises under the money laundering regulations, updated every week or two. Filter the "Accountancy Service Provider" column to "Yes". Each row gives the registration number, business name, trading name, the first part of the postcode, the date supervision began and the sectors covered. There's no street address, phone number, email or contact name.
“All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated”
Reuse is allowed, including commercially, under the Open Government Licence, which also says it "does not cover: personal data in the Information". Many of these businesses are sole traders trading under their own name, so treat those entries as personal data. The bigger problem is practical: half a postcode isn't enough to post anything. It's useful for one thing: spotting accountancy firms that are not members of a professional body, which is a market of its own (see below).
ICAEW Find a Chartered Accountant
Not for marketing
ICAEW's official directory of its member firms, searchable by firm or member name, specialism and location. ICAEW describes it as an "official list of over 12,000 firms".
“You will print one hard copy only from the website for non commercial or personal use only”
Fine for checking whether a firm is ICAEW-registered. Not a source for a list: ICAEW's site terms restrict copies to non-commercial or personal use. The directory runs on a separate site (find.icaew.com) that blocked our automated check, so we couldn't read any terms specific to it; the main icaew.com terms are quoted here.
ACCA Find an accountant
Not for marketing
Two searches: one for ACCA practising firms and one for individual members (you have to enter a surname). Built for a client checking an accountant's credentials.
“No part of this site may be reproduced or stored in any other website or included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without ACCA's prior written permission.”
Building a mailing list from it would mean storing its content in your own system, which the terms forbid without written permission. Use it to check credentials, not to prospect.
Companies House advanced search (SIC 69201)
Limited marketing use
Enter SIC code 69201 (accounting and auditing) or 69202 (bookkeeping) under "Nature of business" and filter to active companies. You get company names, registered office addresses and, by clicking through, the directors. The same data is in Companies House's free monthly bulk download.
“Our Find and update company information service makes all of the public data we hold on companies available free of charge.”
Free and complete for limited companies and LLPs, but nothing else: sole practitioners and ordinary partnerships aren't on it. There are no phone numbers or emails, and expect some dormant and holding companies among the results. We found no Companies House licence page that mentions marketing; the service is marked Crown copyright. Directors' names are personal data, so UK GDPR applies if you write to them.
The same pattern runs through all four: the professional bodies publish to protect clients, not to help suppliers, and HMRC publishes so people can check registration. If you want a free route anyway, Companies House is the one you can rely on legally. Expect to spend time matching names to phone numbers and web addresses yourself.
What's in a list of accountants you can buy?
These are the accountants available from us, and how many records include each kind of contact detail. They're the contacts we hold, not the size of the market: the official figures above are the market.
| Field | Records | Coverage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Postal addresses | 16,595 | 100% | |
| Phone numbers | 16,595 | 100% | |
| Named contacts (a person, usually with job title) | 15,049 | 91% | |
| General company email addresses (info@, enquiries@ etc.) | 4,768 | 29% | |
| Named contact email addresses | 8,064 | 49% |
About half our records have a named email, not all of them. We hold 8,064 named contact emails across 16,595 accountancy records (49%), plus 4,768 general practice inboxes. That's good coverage by the standard of most trades, because partners and owners in practice usually use their own address. Even so, every record has a postal address and a phone number, and one in two doesn't have a named email. Plan a second channel for those.
One record is one accountancy office. Of the 16,595, 14,421 are classed as accountants and 2,174 as businesses that mainly do bookkeeping. You can take both or just one. A multi-office firm appears once per office, so a national firm with twenty offices is twenty records. Tax-only advisers, payroll bureaus and insolvency practitioners are separate categories and aren't counted here.
The named contact is usually a partner, director or the sole practitioner, sometimes the practice manager. A record doesn't tell you which professional body the firm belongs to, if any. If that matters to your offer (software that's approved by one body, for example), cross-check a sample against the ICAEW or ACCA directory before you send anything.
Who makes the buying decisions at accountancy practices, and how do you reach them?
Most practices are small enough that the owner signs everything off. The exceptions are the larger firms and the franchise and network brands.
| Job title | What they decide | Best way to reach them |
|---|---|---|
| Sole practitioner | Everything: software, insurance, premises, outsourcing, whether to sell the client book. Often the only qualified person in the business. | A letter addressed to them by name is the most reliable route. They're hard to catch by phone during client meetings. |
| Managing partner or director | Firm-wide spend: practice management and tax software, mergers, office moves, professional indemnity cover, recruitment agencies. | Write to them by name, or use the named email where we hold one. In a partnership, expect a decision to wait for the next partners' meeting. |
| Practice manager or operations manager | The running of the office: IT support, phones, printing, cleaning, HR, temporary staff, training bookings. Often filters suppliers before the partners see them. | The main office number usually reaches them. Address post for their attention by job title if you don't have a name. |
| Compliance or money laundering reporting officer | AML checks, ID verification tools, file reviews and compliance training. In small firms this is usually one of the partners wearing a second hat. | Name the role in your letter or email so it's passed on. Few records list this person separately. |
| Head office of a network or franchise | Some accountancy brands run many local offices under one name. Software, marketing and supplier contracts are often agreed centrally. | Contact head office first for anything bigger than a local purchase; the local office will usually refer you there anyway. |
To spot a network brand in your list, sort by business name: the same name across many towns usually means a franchise or a firm with branches. Decide before you send whether you're selling to each office or to the group.
What are the rules for marketing to accountants?
The rules depend on how each business is set up. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), sole traders and ordinary partnerships count as individual subscribers, and limited companies, LLPs and other organisations count as corporate subscribers. Wherever a record names a person, UK GDPR applies as well: you need a lawful basis (usually legitimate interests), you must tell them where you got their details, and you must stop if they object.
How UK accountants are set up, according to the Office for National Statistics (41,270 workplaces, UK Business Counts 2026, SIC 69201, 69202):
| Legal form | UK workplaces | Share | How PECR treats them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Limited companies and LLPs | 35,590 | 86% | Corporate subscriber |
| Sole traders | 4,095 | 10% | Individual subscriber |
| Partnerships | 1,335 | 3% | Individual subscriber |
| Charities, clubs and other non-profits | 150 | under 1% | Corporate subscriber |
| Public sector | 100 | under 1% | Corporate subscriber |
| Channel | Sole traders and partnerships (about 13% of this sector, by ONS figures) | Companies, LLPs, charities and public bodies |
|---|---|---|
| Post | Allowed. PECR doesn't cover addressed mail; UK GDPR applies to a named person. | Allowed. UK GDPR applies to a named person. |
| Live sales calls | Allowed unless the number is on the TPS (or they've told you not to call). | Allowed unless the number is on the CTPS (or they've told you not to call). |
| Marketing email and text | Only with their prior consent (or the "soft opt-in" for your own customers). | Allowed without prior consent, if you say who you are and give a simple way to opt out. |
Points specific to accountants:
- The trading name won't tell you the legal form. "Chartered accountants" on a letterhead says nothing about whether the firm is a company, an LLP, a partnership or one person. Check Companies House for "Ltd" or "LLP" before treating an email address as corporate.
- Every practice is already under anti-money laundering supervision. GOV.UK says an accountancy service provider must register with HMRC unless it is "already supervised for money laundering regulations purposes by a professional body", and lists the bodies, from ICAEW and ACCA to the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. If you sell compliance tools, which supervisor a firm reports to is a natural way to split your list.
- Some titles are policed by the bodies. ICAEW says it acts against firms and individuals who call themselves "chartered accountant(s)" or use the letters ACA or FCA when they're not entitled to. If you copy a firm's description into your own marketing (in a directory or a case study, say), check it first.
How much does a list of accountants cost?
You pay per record, and the price per record falls as the order grows:
| Number of records | Price per 1,000 |
|---|---|
| Fewer than 2,500 | £295 |
| 2,500 to 4,999 | £270 |
| 5,000 to 9,999 | £245 |
| 10,000 to 19,999 | £220 |
| 20,000 to 49,999 | £195 |
| 50,000 or more | £170 |
Other lists of UK businesses
Questions people ask about a list of accountants
Where can I get a list of accountants in the UK with decision-maker email addresses?
Not from a free source: none of the professional body directories, HMRC's register or Companies House publishes email addresses for partners or owners. A bought list is the realistic route. We hold 8,064 named contact emails for accountancy practices, about half of our 16,595 records, and most belong to partners, directors or sole practitioners. For the other half, write to the named contact at the office address or call the practice.
Is there a free list of accountants I can use for marketing?
Not one you can use as it stands. ICAEW's and ACCA's directories are for checking an accountant, and their site terms limit copying to personal or non-commercial use. HMRC's Supervised Business Register is free to reuse under the Open Government Licence, but it has no addresses beyond half a postcode. Companies House is free and reusable for limited companies and LLPs coded SIC 69201, though you'd have to add phone numbers and emails yourself, and UK GDPR still applies to directors' names.
How many accountants are there in the UK?
There's no single figure. The FRC counts 418,986 members of seven accountancy bodies with a UK or Irish address (people, many not in practice). Firms are split between regulators: ICAEW supervises more than 11,500 firms, and HMRC supervises 14,428 accountancy businesses that no professional body covers. ONS counts 41,270 accounting and bookkeeping workplaces across the UK. We hold 16,595 accountancy office records.
Can I get a list of accountants who aren't members of ICAEW or ACCA?
Partly. HMRC's Supervised Business Register lists the accountancy businesses HMRC supervises, which are those not supervised by a professional body. It's free under the Open Government Licence, but it gives only the business name and the first half of the postcode. To contact them you'd need to match each name to an address, or ask us for a count of unaffiliated practices in your area.
Is a list of chartered accountants the same as a list of accountants?
No. Chartered accountants belong to one of the chartered accountancy bodies, such as ICAEW, ICAS, ACCA or CIMA. Many businesses that do accounts, bookkeeping and tax returns aren't members of any of them, and ICAEW itself says anyone can call themselves an accountant. A list of all accountancy practices is bigger than a list of chartered firms.
I sell software to accountancy firms. Should I target partners or the practice manager?
In a firm of two or three partners, the partners decide and the practice manager, if there is one, does the legwork. In larger firms the practice manager or an operations lead often runs the shortlist. Our records name a partner, director or owner in most cases, so write to them and ask that it's passed on if someone else handles IT.
Can I buy a list of accountants for one county or city?
Yes. You can narrow the list by region, county, town or postcode area before you buy, and you only pay for the records you take. A free count will show how many accountancy offices we hold in your area and how many have a named email.
How much does a list of accountants cost?
Lists are priced per record: £295 per 1,000 for orders under 2,500 records, falling to £170 per 1,000 for 50,000 or more (excluding VAT). With 16,595 accountants available, a UK-wide list falls in the 10,000 to 19,999 band. Ask for a free count for your area and an exact price.