The Accountancy Age 35 under 35 returns for 2026, in partnership with AJ Chambers, to shine a spotlight on the profession’s rising stars. Each year, the ranking recognises young accountants who are not only excelling in their careers but also making meaningful contributions to their firms, clients, and the wider community.
The initiative celebrates individuals under the age of 35 who demonstrate exceptional technical skill, leadership potential, and a commitment to driving the industry forward.
This year’s cohort reflects the breadth of the profession, spanning academia, practice, industry, and entrepreneurial ventures. Their stories highlight how innovation, ambition, and resilience continue to reshape accountancy across the UK.
Over the coming days, Accountancy Age will unveil the full line-up of 35 winners. Today, we are proud to introduce the first wave of honourees who have secured their place in the 2026 ranking.
Accounting & Business Services Director, Wilson Partners
- Advisory Transformation: Alice has led a strategic shift away from historic compliance reporting toward real-time operational insights. By hosting client strategy days and implementing ongoing advisory engagements, she works directly with SME owners to influence future commercial strategy rather than merely processing historical data.
- Cross-Border Delivery: She was instrumental in integrating and scaling Wilson Partners’ delivery team based in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Rather than running an arms-length outsourced back-office function, Alice embedded the 53-person South African unit as a fully integrated extension of the UK firm, establishing shared operational processes and cultural alignment across both locations.
- Commercial Metrics: In FY25, Alice is on track to deliver £875,000 in fee revenue. This performance represents a 25% year-on-year growth rate for her immediate pod.
Deals Tax Senior Associate, PwC
- Deals & Restructuring Expertise: Operating across PwC’s Portfolio & Restructuring tax teams, Alice advises private equity-backed and distressed clients on complex statutory frameworks, including Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC) legislation, Loans to Participators, the Corporate Interest Restriction, and Substantial Shareholding Exemptions.
- Transaction & Portfolio Scale: Over the past year, she doubled revenue on her largest tax compliance account by negotiating fees for out-of-scope advisory work. Her recent deal sheet includes coordinating the filing of 30 corporate tax returns, supporting a multi-million-pound corporate demerger, assisting on a vendor review for a €1 billion transaction, and authoring a technical CFC report covering roughly 80 global entities.
- AI Upskilling & Social Impact: Alice actively coaches junior team members on tax research across unfamiliar jurisdictions, AI model selection, and prompt engineering to accelerate technical drafting. Outside client work, she served as Musical Director for the 2026 PwC Pantomime, conducting 12 national performances with over 50 finance professionals. The initiative secured £6,000 in equipment funding for local schools, donated 10,000 tickets to disadvantaged youth, and raised £8,000 for Mental Health UK.
Technical Accounting Partner, Azets
- Service Line Expansion: Joining Garbutt & Elliott (acquired by Azets) in 2012 as an 18-year-old school leaver, Becky qualified as an ACA in 2018 and identified a market gap for mid-tier technical accounting advice positioned competitively against Big Four fee structures. Over six years, she scaled the firm’s dedicated technical accounting service line from two team members to over 20 nationwide, growing annual revenues from £120,000 to more than £2.3 million at top-tier gross margins.
- Specialist Advisory & Audit Support: Promoted to Partner in March 2026 at age 32, Becky leads specialist engagements covering share-based payments, purchase price allocations, financial instruments, IFRS/GAAP conversions, and IPO readiness. She also established an internal audit support framework to assist Azets audit teams with complex technical testing, including the application of AI tools to test lease accounting under new UK GAAP.
- Industry Representation: Becky sits on the ICAEW Corporate Reporting Faculty Board and represents Azets at quarterly Financial Reporting Council (FRC) meetings. She helped author ICAEW guidance on share-based payment accounting and led an ICAEW national seminar on impairment that drew over 3,000 registrants.
Founder & Director, Brophy Accountancy & Advisory | Industrial Fellow, Aston University
- SME Process Redesign: Ben leads BAA Group, delivering operational overhauls for small businesses. In a recent project, he transitioned a £500,000-turnover automotive garage from paper logs and shared credit cards to Xero, modern data-capture tools, and individual employee cards, eliminating manual bookkeeping bottlenecks and saving the client an estimated five hours per week.
- Higher Education & Diversity: As an Industrial Fellow at Aston University—where 81% of undergraduates come from minoritised ethnic backgrounds—Ben teaches cloud accounting and AI-driven workflows. During the 2025–2026 academic year, he guided approximately 400 students toward software certifications in platforms such as Sage and Xero.
- Industry Engagement: Ben presents quarterly CPD Store lectures on practical, ethical AI implementation for accountants, serves as Vice President for his ICAEW regional district society, and co-hosts the APEN podcast, recently featuring the President of the ICAEW.
Managing Director, Streets (Bristol)
- Practice Growth & Merger: Ben founded a digital-first, paperless cloud practice in 2017, expanding it to £2 million in annual revenue over seven years before merging into the Streets group.
- The “ViFi” Model: To address SME demand for ongoing commercial direction, Ben developed “ViFi,” a hybrid service model combining traditional practice compliance with an embedded virtual finance function. The service provides growing businesses with routine operational support without the overhead of an in-house finance team.
- Group-Wide Leadership: Within the broader Streets organisation, Ben serves as national Head of Making Tax Digital (MTD) and Head of Cloud across the South and West. He oversees group-wide digital transformation, leads the centralized credit control function, and restructured practice roles to transition junior staff from manual data entry into early-stage advisory work.
Partner, Azets
- Practice Leadership: Promoted to Partner at age 33 following 14 years in practice, Chan leads Accounts & Business Advisory in Coventry, oversees regional growth initiatives, and heads the Medical Services practice across the Midlands.
- Digital Workflows: Chan directed the digital modernization of the Coventry office, executing software migrations, integrating AI-driven process automation into compliance workflows, and conducting structured upskilling sessions to ensure team adaptability.
- Community & Inclusion: Chan helped secure firm-level awards for diversity, equality, and apprenticeship development. Externally, he regularly volunteers with international and regional charities, including Khalsa Aid and the Midlands Langar Seva Society.
Director, Saffery
- Sports Taxation: Qualifying as an ACA and CTA in 2019, David operates within Saffery’s Sports & Entertainment team, specializing in international tax planning, image rights structuring, and agency fee regulations.
- Commercial Deal Sheet: During the summer 2025 transfer window, David advised on over £375 million worth of Premier League player transfers. In one engagement, his tax restructuring of an image rights agreement yielded up to £2 million in savings for a Premier League player, converting the instruction into an ongoing client retainer. Through his direct professional network, David generates over £100,000 in recurring annual fee revenue.
- Emerging Sectors & Financial Literacy: Beyond football, golf, and tennis, David was an early tax advisor in the esports sector, structuring compliance frameworks for professional Fortnite players. He also delivers practical financial literacy and tax education sessions for members of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA).
Partner, Accounts & Business Services, BKL
- Career Trajectory: Entering the profession via the social mobility charity Leadership Through Sport & Business (LTSB) after initially training as a mechanic, Fabio joined BKL as an apprentice. In April 2026, ten years after joining the firm, he became BKL’s youngest partner.
- Operations & AI Implementation: As a member of the Accounts & Business Services Board, Fabio manages pod performance at the North London office. He led efficiency integrations across Karbon, Silverfin, and Alphatax, introduced new budgeting tools, and collaborated with BKL’s internal data scientists to test and deploy operational AI strategies.
- Portfolio & Succession: Since April 2026, Fabio has secured £200,000 in cross-service contract wins. His partner portfolio includes a long-standing luxury timepiece client (delivering a 4% revenue increase following second-generation succession) and an overseas renewable energy investment group generating £50,000 in recurring revenue. To date, he has mentored eight internal staff promotions.
Managing Director, Virgate Accounts
- Business Scaling: Over a nine-year period, 31-year-old Glenn helped scale Virgate Accounts from a £100,000-turnover startup into an outsourced bookkeeping and management accounts business generating £1.7 million in annual revenue—a 17-fold growth trajectory.
- Operational Execution: Holding AAT credentials, Glenn directed Virgate’s business development, software integration, and client management. He operates as a de facto Finance Director for major clients in the hospitality sector, including regional pub groups, translating financial data into commercial reporting.
- M&A Process: Glenn’s operational management and client retention frameworks were central to preparing Virgate for its acquisition by Access Healthcare Services in May 2024, a transaction process he helped manage.
The first wave of 2026 winners illustrates how mid-tier firms, Big Four practices, and independent specialists are modernizing the UK accounting landscape. Through targeted automation, structured advisory frameworks, and practical mentorship, these individuals demonstrate the technical and commercial capabilities driving the profession forward.
