What HMRC's digital transformation is doing to the hidden hours of accountancy

Signal note — the full article and research findings are published on Sage: What HMRC’s digital transformation is doing to the hidden hours of accountancy.

This article is the primary source for the Hidden Hours of Accountancy research — the survey of 1,000 UK accountants and bookkeepers that produced the evidence base the Hidden Hours narrative is built on.

The key numbers, documented here for reference across the EI OS:

Survey of 1,000 UK-based accounting and bookkeeping practitioners. All respondents were client-facing practitioners working in firms that serve external clients. Fieldwork conducted April 2026.

Time allocation

44% of the working week spent on core accounting and compliance — down from 50% a year ago
24% on advisory and technology work
18% on running the practice (admin, billing, chasing clients)
13% on beyond-the-brief client support — up from 9% a year ago, a 44% increase in a single year
Only 8% of practitioners report doing none of this kind of work

The trajectory of beyond-the-brief

62% of accountants say they are spending more time on beyond-the-brief tasks than 12 months ago
74% say the same compared to three years ago

What beyond-the-brief actually includes

52% business mentoring on non-financial matters
52% acting as an emotional support resource for clients
37% HR and employment support
36% technology troubleshooting
30% ad hoc administrative support unrelated to accounting
82% of practices serving primarily sole traders regularly act as a therapist for clients (35% for limited company focused firms)
Female practitioners (63%) significantly more likely to provide emotional support than male counterparts (42%)

Scope and pricing

81% regularly take on tasks outside their agreed scope of work
53% say their services are not always clearly defined for clients
Only 14% say their scope is typically very clearly defined
70% say their fees don’t reflect the full range of support they provide
When out-of-scope work arises: 44% absorb it without additional charge, 22% raise a separate fee, 14% formally re-scope the engagement
Only 19% charge for most or all of their beyond-the-brief work

MTD and workload

67% expect MTD obligations to increase workload over the next two years
62% already say they spend too much time managing the practice
58% say they’re spending too much time on beyond-the-brief work right now

AI and automation

54% of accountants already using AI regularly need to review or adjust AI-generated outputs before using them
Among regular AI users, that figure rises to 91%

Wellbeing and retention

56% say they are satisfied with their job — but the figure is falling
44% say job satisfaction has declined over the past three years; only 19% say it has improved
80% say beyond-scope work makes their working life more stressful
72% say it makes it harder to do their actual job effectively
42% say the reality of the role is worse than they expected when entering the profession
13% of accountants say they are likely to leave within the next three years
18% of the next generation (those who will shape the profession for the next two decades) say the same
47% of those considering leaving point to too much time on non-accounting tasks as a key driver

Direction of the profession

38% believe the profession is moving in the right direction: towards advisory work, greater technology use, and wider recognition of value
34% disagree, pointing to rising workloads without fair pay, expanding compliance burden, and client expectations that are difficult to match
The profession does not have a shared sense of where it is going

The analytical frame

The article’s core argument: HMRC’s modernisation doesn’t reduce the operational burden on accounting firms. It redistributes it.

The profession isn’t simply becoming more digital. It’s becoming more continuous — and much of what that continuity requires remains invisible, uncharged, and unacknowledged.

This is the mechanism Hidden Hours was always describing, now quantified. The 44% figure (core accounting work as a share of the working week) is the baseline. The 13% and growing “beyond-the-brief” category is the direction of travel. MTD will accelerate the shift. AI will not reverse it.

The automation paradox — precisely stated

The most important data point for the AI Maturity Curve framework: among regular AI users, 91% say they regularly need to review or adjust AI-generated outputs before using them.

The work doesn’t disappear. It shifts — from production to oversight. Faster categorisation creates more categorisations to review. Faster drafting creates more drafts to validate. Faster submissions create more outputs to stand behind.

This is the capacity gap in operational terms. AI creates time at the production level. It generates new obligations at the oversight level. If the oversight work is unscoped and uncharged, the efficiency gain is absorbed rather than captured.

The beyond-the-brief category

“Beyond-the-brief” is the most analytically useful concept this research introduces.

It gives a name to the work that has been expanding the hardest to identify and address: not core accounting, not advisory, not practice management — but the operational support layer that wraps around client relationships and expands with every new regulation, technology transition, and rising client expectation.

The 9% → 13% movement in a single year is the signal that this category is accelerating. The near-universality (only 8% report none of it) is the signal that it is structural, not incidental.

Naming it is the precondition for pricing it. The Hidden Hours research gives the profession a vocabulary for work that was previously only felt.