By Andrew Guy, CEO at FD Intelligence
Picture a managing partner at a UK-based mid-tier tax practice, staring down three major client opportunities, not with excitement, but with dread. Not because her team lacks the technical expertise, but because they lack the capacity.
What’s behind that lack of capacity? A tired, overstretched team already running on empty, that’s what.
“We’re drowning in work, but we can’t find the people,” she tells us. “The traditional answer was always ‘hire more staff.’ That doesn’t work anymore.”
This isn’t an isolated story. Across the UK, tax practices are facing a breaking point, not just in terms of growth, but in terms of team wellbeing and retention.
When more hands aren’t the answer
For decades, growth in demand meant growth in headcount. During peak seasons, you hired more people. For complex work, you found experienced professionals.
That model functioned when talent was abundant, and workloads were manageable. But today? That’s no longer reality.
- ManpowerGroup reports that 3 in 4 UK employers face critical skills shortages.
- Thomson Reuters shows 75% of tax professionals say client expectations are increasing.
- Brewer Morris finds firms are chasing a shrinking talent pool with increasingly marginal incentives.
In short: demand is rising, while supply is in decline. And the consequences are no longer just commercial, they’re cultural.
The real cost: overtime, burnout, and resentment
When practices can’t meet demand with existing resources, the pressure lands squarely on the team’s shoulders.
Overtime becomes the norm. Stress builds. Frustration festers. And eventually good people leave. Here’s what we’re seeing on the ground:
- Teams working late nights and weekends to hit compliance deadlines, sacrificing work-life balance.
- Rising resentment between colleagues as workloads grow uneven and support systems erode.
- Burnout-fuelled resignations, especially among mid-career professionals who feel trapped between client demands and internal expectations.
- Talent drain, with exhausted team members leaving the profession altogether, compounding the issue.
And with Making Tax Digital (MTD) looming, the workload is only set to increase. More compliance, tighter deadlines, and higher expectations. All of this must be managed with the same, or fewer, people.
This is unsustainable and a fast track to collapse.
Systems that add stress, not scale
Outdated systems and disconnected workflows aren’t helping. They’re intensifying the strain.
Tax professionals are losing hours every week jumping between systems, reconciling inconsistent data, and redoing tasks that should’ve been done once and done right.
These are operational inefficiencies that become emotional stressors. Technology should be making life easier. Instead, it’s often making it worse.
The capacity question every firm must ask
With team wellbeing on the line, every practice needs to confront three urgent questions:
- How do we protect our people while keeping clients happy?
- How do we grow advisory work without burning out the team?
- How do we handle MTD and future regulation with our current capacity?
Because if you’re still relying on long hours, goodwill, and occasional temp hires to make the numbers work, something will break. And it’s usually your best people who break first.
A smarter, more human approach
The solution isn’t working harder, it’s working smarter. Forward-looking firms are already changing the game by amplifying their teams rather than overloading them.
They’re moving away from legacy systems and towards Agentic AI technology that automates the admin, simplifies workflows, and gives professionals their time (and sanity) back.
This isn’t about replacing people. It’s about protecting them, enabling them to focus on what they do best: helping clients, solving problems, and delivering value.
The capacity crunch won’t ease up. And with MTD around the corner, the pressure is only growing.
But firms that act now, who recognise the connection between systems, stress, and staff retention – can avoid burnout and unlock a more resilient path to growth.
Next week: We’ll explore how Agentic AI is already transforming leading UK tax practices, and why early adopters are gaining a significant competitive advantage.