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As a newly qualified accountant coming out of your training contract in Q2 2025, there are lots of things you’ll be thinking and wondering about. For many people, just like you, money is usually high on the agenda. You have, after all, worked hard and sacrificed a lot, so it’s only fair to be compensated correctly for the value of your time.
What’s the going salary for a newly qualified accountant? What information is accurate, and what can I rely on? I heard Mary got €62,000 and Laura got €65,000 – what does that mean?
How do I benchmark my salary against the going ‘rate’ out there?
…nobody wants to be short-changed.
Well, look no further…
Most salary surveys give you an average or range. However, depending on the sample size, the average figure can be skewed and often doesn’t give a true reflection of the actual base salary. And sometimes (more than you might imagine), the numbers are not based on surveys but on sentiment. I don’t know about you but prefer using hard data when making big decisions that affect my life…
Over the last few years across Dublin*, we have helped lots of newly qualified accountants make their first move after their training contract. For fun, we tracked their base salaries every six months (yes, that’s what we regard as fun here in Barden!) and created some real-time data points just for you. We do this every year, and this time around, it appears that base salaries for newly qualified accountants are levelling off after a period of significant acceleration.
#1 Base salary is only a part of Total Compensation (Base + Package) – want to know about total comp for newly qualified accountants? We asked one of our experts in Barden Dublin, Niall O’Keeffe, and he shared the following:
The average Salary for H2 2025 was €65,417 (The average Salary for H1 2025 was €65,357).
To caveat here, the mode Salary for H2 2025 is €65,000 .i.e. The most common exact salary which newly qualified accountants received in H2 2025 was €65,000.
The average salary is slightly higher because there is a premium paid to those securing roles in industries such as aircraft leasing and private equity at this level, which raises the average.
- The average Bonus for H2 2025 was 7% (The average Bonus for H1 2025 was 8%).
- The average Pension for H2 2025 was 4% (The average Pension for H1 2025 was 5%).
- The average Annual Leave Days(excluding Company Days) for H2 2025 was 23 Days (The average Annual Leave Days (excluding Company Days) for H1 2025 was 23 days).
(*these are Dublin-only numbers. For outside Dublin, you would typically apply a 10% reduction on base +/- 2.5 % depending on location. For bespoke salary advice in your area contact one of our team below.)
#2 Sometimes… people get paid a higher base for the same job in a different company. Why? It could be that one company offers additional benefits and the other doesn’t; it could be because one role has a lot of travel and the other doesn’t; it could be that one company finds it harder to attract accountants than the other, or it could be due to a whole host of different variables. When it comes to base salary, make sure you’re not comparing apples with oranges; ask one of our expert team in Barden first.
It should not be all about the base in your first few moves PQE. You may not have prepared a set of accounts yet or done a month-end management pack; in fact, there are probably a lot of things that you have yet to get practical experience in. Your first few years PQE should really be about getting good experience working with great people… and, of course, getting fairly paid while you do.
It’s not really about your base salary now; it’s about your base salary in ten years and for the twenty or thirty years after that. Earning follows learning, not the other way around.
Finishing your training contract in 2026? Do you want to make sure you make the very best first step after qualifying? Do you want a coffee meeting with an experienced talent advisor; someone who is a qualified accountant, just like you (meet our Leinster team here>>> and our Munster team here>>>)?
Do you want a little help to create your very own best professional future? No problem. Just drop us a line today on hello@barden.ie and we will take it from there. Simple.