Two conversations I keep having in 2026 are almost mirror images of each other.
The first is with someone who moved from practice to industry two or three years ago and never looked back. They talk about headspace. About finishing work and not thinking about it until the next morning. About building something, rather than billing for it. They sound settled.
The second is harder. Someone who made a similar move and found it quietly disappointing. Not because the company was bad, or the salary was wrong, but because the reality of the role did not match what they had imagined. They miss the technical depth. They feel further from progression, not closer to it. They are already wondering about their next move.
Both people left practice for broadly the same reasons. The outcomes could not be more different.
The gap is almost always about expectations, not ability
When an accountant moves to industry, the thing that trips them up is rarely competence. Coming through practice, particularly a mid-tier or Big Four firm, builds a level of technical rigour that most commercial businesses genuinely value. That is not the issue.
The issue is the mismatch between what someone hoped the move would feel like and what it actually feels like.
Practice can feel relentless. The billing pressure, the client deadlines, the constant context-switching between different companies and problems. Industry, from the outside, looks like relief. More focus. More ownership. Better hours. And often, especially in the right role, that is exactly what it is.
But “more focus” also means narrower. The variety that made practice exhausting was also what made it intellectually alive for a lot of people. When that variety disappears and you are working within the same company, the same systems, the same reporting cycle, month after month, some people find their stride. Others quietly go stir-crazy.
The autonomy question is the one to ask honestly
A lot of accountants say they want autonomy when what they really want is to be left alone to do good work without being second-guessed. Those are related but they are not the same thing.
True commercial autonomy, the kind that comes with a financial controller or finance manager role in a growing Irish SME, can mean being under-resourced, building processes that do not exist yet, and navigating decisions without much support. For the right person, that is exactly what they came for. For someone who assumed industry meant a more structured, polished environment than practice, it can feel chaotic in a way they did not anticipate.
The opposite also exists. Larger corporates and multinationals with finance operations in Ireland can offer stability and structure, but sometimes so much structure that an ambitious post-qualified accountant feels like a cog rather than a contributor. The people who thrive there are often the ones who found practice overwhelming and genuinely wanted to go deep rather than broad. The ones who regret it are often those who expected fast progression and found the hierarchy slowed them down instead.
What career progression actually looks like in industry
In practice, progression is visible. You know the path. Trainee, senior, manager, assistant manager, senior manager, director, partner. It takes time but the rungs are there.
In industry, the next step is less clearly marked. A financial controller role in a Dublin-headquartered business of 50 to 200 people can be genuinely senior and well-compensated, but what comes after it depends almost entirely on whether the company grows, whether the CFO moves on, or whether you are willing to move again.
This is not a reason to stay in practice. It is a reason to think about it clearly before you move. The accountants who do not regret leaving are usually those who went in knowing that career progression in industry is something you build yourself, through the choices you make about which companies to join, rather than something the structure hands to you.
The move worth making is a considered one
The candidates I have seen navigate this transition well are not the ones who had it all figured out. They are the ones who asked honest questions before they moved. Not “will I earn more?” (often yes, sometimes marginally), but “what kind of work actually energises me?”, “do I want depth or breadth?”, “am I moving towards something, or away from something?”
Moving away from something is not always wrong. Burnout is real and practice can produce it at pace. But if the only thing driving the decision is exhaustion, there is a real chance the next role will feel like a lateral move at a different kind of exhausting.
The accountants who never look back are usually those who chose a role that fitted who they actually are, not who they assumed they would become once they escaped the pressure.
If you are weighing this up right now, the most useful thing you can do is get honest with yourself about that distinction before you move.
