Three out of four accountants feel that the changes resulting from the recession have had a negative impact on the industry and their career fulfilment.

But despite the tough economic climate, one in four of those working in accountancy described the effect of the economic downturn as positive, compared with just 16% of the wider UK workforce. The only sectors that have a more positive view of the impact of the recession on their industry are FMCG (42%), manufacturing (31%) and financial services (27%).

The main impact of the recession has been an increase in targets and workload, cited by 43% of respondents to the survey of 2,000 UK staff by recruiter Randstad Financial & Professional.

Over half (52%) of accountants said that change in the industry could have been implemented more effectively, compared to 48% of the wider UK workforce. A similar proportion of accountants (46%) want to see more change if the sector is to strengthen with 10% reporting that ‘significant’ change is required.

‘When businesses have been restructuring, cutting budgets and attempting to adjust workforce sizes in order to weather the downturn effectively, it has been accountants who have had to crunch the numbers and identify points of re-organisation,’ said Tara Ricks, managing director of Randstad Financial & Professional.

‘With so many in the industry saying implementation of change could have been done better, there are still lessons to be learnt.’