The Fastest-Growing Jobs in Accounting Are Not Accounting Jobs
The Fastest-Growing Jobs in Accounting Firms Are Not Accounting Jobs
By CPA Trendlines
SURVEYS & RESEARCH
Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems
Prove It: PE-Backed Firms Must Now Deliver on Their Big Strategies
CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ — May 2026
| Target | Platform/Buyer | Sponsor | Funding | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jackson Thornton | Ascend | Alpine Investors | PE-backed | Wealth management, Gulf Coast expansion |
| Jefferson Wells U.S. | Sikich | Bain Capital involvement | Institutionally backed | Consulting and staffing capabilities |
| Copeland Buhl | Frazier & Deeter | — | Conventional M&A | First Midwest footprint |
| Price Kong | Aprio | Charlesbank | PE-backed | Arizona and cannabis specialization |
| SWKJD | Citrin Cooperman | Blackstone | PE-backed | South Florida expansion |
| Gorfine Schiller & Gardyn | Sorren | DFW Capital | PE-backed | Mid-Atlantic expansion |
| Gordon Advisors | Cohen & Co. | Lovell Minnick | PE-backed | Michigan expansion |
| ArightCo | Abbott Stringham & Lynch | — | Conventional M&A | CAS and fractional CFO scaling |
| ASO Advisors | Windsor Path | Family-office backed | Private capital | Platform’s second deal |
| GBC Advisory | Springline Advisory | Trinity Hunt Partners | PE-backed | Oklahoma expansion |
| MCA Connect | Grant Thornton Advisors | New Mountain Capital | PE-backed | AI and digital transformation |
| Burke & Associates | Platform Accounting Group / Shoreline | Cynosure Group | Private capital | Massachusetts expansion |
Of the month’s notable deals, 10 are funded by outside capital, led by Grant Thornton’s deal for a tech consultancy and Sikich’s for a staffing service.
By CPA Trendlines
Marking a new phase in the private equity takeover of the CPA business, the next test for accounting platforms will be proving that serial acquisitions can be converted into integrated firms, not just larger collections of offices, partners and legacy systems.
MORE CPA-PE DEAL TRACKER™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform | PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker(™): PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker™ for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker™ Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing
MORE Private Equity
Call it: The Implementation Imperative. It’s the place where grand schemes on paper meet the concrete realities of running a business. The first phase was acquisition. The second was consolidation. The next is all about making it work.
The May 2026 edition of the CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ illustrates the change. And a CPA Trendlines survey in April shows 44% of accountants are eager, open or already closed on a deal.
CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform
Venture capital crashes the private equity party in accounting.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Private equity’s push into accounting is entering a new and more complicated phase: platform building, sponsor recycling, technology investments, blended tax and wealth services — and now, a new pipeline of cash from venture capital.
MORE PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | Gear Up for Growth | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker: PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Holistic Guide
MORE Private Equity
This month’s CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ shows nine new deals in April, down from the first-quarter deal-closing frenzy but bringing the year-to-date deal count through April 30 to 78, well ahead of the 44 logged in the same window of 2025.
The broader verified dataset now includes 452 in-scope events, giving CPA Trendlines a clearer view of what private capital is doing after its first wave of accounting-firm investments.
The latest data does not show a retreat. It shows a transformation. The new gambits go well beyond roll-ups, and include service line extensions, corporate carve-outs, cross-industry tie-ups, recapitalizations, continuations and a buzzy new venture-backed startup.
World domination
The deal models are sprawling in all directions as big money battles for a dwindling number of prime firms and squeezes for synergies in the firms they’ve acquired.
In the mix, accounting is morphing from a profession into a platform. A launchpad from which to sell a growing, and traditionally conflict-laden, range of products and services. From tax planning to wealth management, from outsourced accounting systems to internal audit, and from risk management to insurance sales.
A once incongruous, even contradictory, collection of services are being acquired, aligned and advanced. The ambition is market encirclement. The impulse is world domination.
CPA Firms Show Signs of Profit Weakness, Even as Fees Strengthen
The Numbers Explain Why 2026 Feels So Difficult.
By CPA Trendlines
Across every major metric, CPA Trendlines is finding the same pattern: Firms are doing more work and generating more revenue — but keeping less of it.
The dynamic was unearthed in gory detail by the Busy Season Barometer. fron-inr \isteb=ning from The Busy Season Barometer. The numbers through tax season didn’t break all at once. Instead, they had been drifting apart. READ MORE →
Tax Season Leaves Accountants Drained, Disappointed
The Busy Season Barometer Shows Exactly When—and Why.
By CPA Trendlines
After starting near historic highs, sentiment among tax professionals fell more than 30 points by April, as workload, client behavior and system failures overwhelmed expectations.
MORE Busy Season Barometer | Join the survey. Get the results
The 2026 tax season began with confidence.
By December, sentiment among tax professionals had climbed to a positive 29.8—the strongest reading in the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer cycle. A majority expected better conditions. Few anticipated what came next.
By April, that optimism had vanished.
Accountant attitudes closed the season slightly negative, around -1 to -1.8, marking a swing of more than 30 points in four months.
It was one of the sharpest same-season reversals in the Barometer’s 24-year history, and it followed a pattern practitioners have seen before: expectations rising in the fall, then breaking under the weight of the season itself.
The difference in 2026 was the speed—and the causes.