{"id":204931,"date":"2025-12-22T10:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T10:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/204931\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T10:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T10:33:07","slug":"ai-drives-big-shift-in-skills-for-accounting-graduates-rsm-warns-before-hiring-spree-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/204931\/","title":{"rendered":"AI drives big shift in skills for accounting graduates, RSM warns before hiring spree \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The balcony of RSM Ireland<\/a>\u2019s new offices atop Harcourt Road boasts enviable views across the city centre, but the move is for more than just aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Niall May, the managing partner of RSM Ireland, points towards a series of major accountancy and professional services firms scattered around the area.<\/p>\n

In a sector traditionally dominated by a few big firms, RSM is seeking to become the fifth largest player in the Irish market, and being located in the city centre is the next step in that growth.<\/p>\n

The new office space is certainly comfortable. May says it is a reflection of the firm\u2019s trajectory in recent years. Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers perhaps summed it up best at the opening of the office: <\/p>\n

\u201cRSM has come a long way in the last few months, and I don\u2019t just mean from a church in Ranelagh to a new office on Harcourt Street near Coppers.\u201d <\/p>\n

May joined RSM, then RSM Farrell Grant Sparks, in 2013 as a partner and head of audit after 14 years with KPMG. He took over the role of managing partner in early 2024, shortly after RSM UK acquired the Irish business in a \u201cmajor strategic investment\u201d aimed at accelerating its growth and expanding its market share.<\/p>\n

Since the acquisition, RSM has seen its presence in the Irish market grow substantially. The firm\u2019s revenue hit \u20ac23.5 million in its financial year ending in March 2024, before growing to \u20ac28.2 million earlier this year – a nearly 50 per cent increase on its performance in 2023.<\/p>\n

For a man who became an accountant out of a love of numbers, there\u2019s no shock at his ambitions being numerical.<\/p>\n

For the coming year, RSM Ireland is projecting \u201cstrong double-digit growth\u201d, buoyed by a new global partnership of all of RSM\u2019s firms.<\/p>\n

RSM\u2019s UK and Irish operations have joined forces with their US and Canadian sister firms. The new agreement falls short of a full financial merger that had been mooted, but the leadership structure is expected to be an alternative to taking money from private equity while also allowing RSM to challenge for a bigger stake in the market. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be the Big Four. We want to focus on the middle market, and see a massive opportunity there,\u201d he says. The Big Four firms being Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC. <\/p>\n

The new 23,000-person partnership, amounting to $5 billion (\u20ac4.3 billion) in revenue, May says, will give the Irish firm the opportunity and support to target new markets and create new services. <\/p>\n

The integration with its UK and US firms is aimed at creating an offering distinct from what other players in the market are providing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we target clients globally, we will be going to market together as RSM – we are not introducing RSM Ireland, UK or US, we\u2019re just one firm – that makes it more seamless,\u201d he says. \u201cGlobal clients want global solutions, and that is what we are trying to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could being part of a global partnership strip the firm of the agility needed to keep step with an ever changing market? May says no, pointing to the tie-up with the UK firm and the growth they have seen since, but also crediting the structure of the deal as retaining the autonomy for individual firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have got the best of both worlds,\u201d he says, \u201cWe have already seen some tangible benefits [from the UK partnership]. We are winning work that, had we stayed by ourselves, we would not have been able to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the partnership is set to kick off in January, the firm has set its sights on doubling its 250-person workforce in the next three years.<\/p>\n

Having left the Big Four himself out of a desire to be \u201cmore entrepreneurial\u201d, he says that joining a middle-market accountancy firm offers more room for advancement as the firm grows and it looks to develop its own talent.<\/p>\n

Forgoing the traditional corner office, the firm\u2019s managing partner does not have his own space in the RSM building, instead joining the hot-desking approach common across the organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the firm, people are our most important assets,\u201d May said, noting that having a \u201chighly motivated\u201d and engaged workforce is aided by having an \u201copen, transparent and comfortable\u201d culture.<\/p>\n

The opportunity of shaping a rapidly expanding firm is a significant benefit when it comes to hiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like the RSM story, they see the growth trajectory, they see a very young brand relative to some of our competitors – we\u2019re only nine years old in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

May says the skills for which firms are looking are changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are definitely changing our grad model. We are looking for more digital analytics skills, as opposed to your traditional accountant,\u201d with RSM aiming to embrace AI and the automation of more routine tasks.<\/p>\n

He says this allows accountants to focus more on providing insights for customers and makes it a more \u201cchallenging and rewarding\u201d environment for graduates.<\/p>\n

Accountancy is typically a low-risk environment, and RSM is looking to manage the risks that come with using AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI doesn\u2019t always give you the right answer, it can often give you the wrong answer! We certainly see it as an opportunity, but only when it\u2019s used in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The right way, he says, is to have policies and procedures around its use.<\/p>\n

The use and integration of AI will see some accountants \u201cmove from doing to reviewing\u201d as large portions of, for example, tax compliance work can be automated – but a human eye is needed to review.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, this is a relationships-driven business, automation will never change that\u201d but it will have an impact on how accountants work, he says.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t see the technology doing accountants out of a job, certainly RSM have no plans to reduce its graduate intake. <\/p>\n

The key, May says, is to be open to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The balcony of RSM Ireland\u2019s new offices atop Harcourt Road boasts enviable views across the city centre, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,99078,77671,61,60,61533,80],"class_list":["post-204931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-chartered-accountants-ireland","tag-harcourt-street","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rsm","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}