The largest accountancy firms have increased their share of the UK audit market with 100% of FTSE 100 companies now audited by the Big Four (PwC, KPMG, EY and Deloitte), according to a report by the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC).
The Big Four increased their combined ‘total fee income’ by 4.7% to £10.95 billion and ‘audit fee income’ by 1.7% to £2.1 billion. By contrast, total fee income at non-big four audit firms fell by 8.1% and ‘audit fee income’ fell by 6.3%. The average audit fee income in 2018 for all firms with public interest entity clients per responsible individual was £1.46 million.
The number of audit firms registered to carry out statutory audit work in the UK and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) fell by 4.7% in 2017/18, down from 5,660 to 5,394 audit firms. This is in part due to a decline in both the number of sole practitioner audit firms (down from 2,733 to 2,558) and firms with 2 – 6 Principals (down from 2,618 to 2,534). Meanwhile membership of the accountancy bodies continues to grow. The seven bodies overseen by the FRC have over 365,000 members in the UK and almost 550,000 members worldwide.
The report can be downloaded click here