According to Journal of Accountancy, lower starting salaries in accounting versus those in other professions have served as obstacles to recruiting students into the accounting pipeline.

“Higher starting salaries and more competitive pay across the board will definitely help accounting firms attract and retain more talent,” noted Lisa Simpson, AICPA vice president–firm services. “The profession is making progress in this area, but we need to continue to evaluate pay compared to other career opportunities.”

However, there's good news—the results of the survey published on Sept. 10 demonstrate that CPA firms are increasing compensation for those who have just graduated.

The 2025 National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey showed that new hires who have master’s degrees saw starting salaries rise approximately 17 percent to a median $67,750 from the previous survey in 2023. Salaries for those with bachelor’s degrees increased 11 percent to $60,834.

The survey also revealed that starting pay increase for master’s graduates was seen the most in firms that have less than $5 million in net client fees. Those practices comprised 81percent of the 1,073 firms that completed the survey, conducted every two years by the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section and CPA.com.

Firms reported that compensation rose for all 10 positions that the survey tracks. One of the biggest increases from the 2023 survey is pay rising 15 percent for managers in two years.

According to the report, equity partners and owners also got double-digital gains, with their compensation increasing 10 percent to $202,521, which  is impacted as a median result by smaller firms representing a majority of the respondents. Net remaining per owner also saw a 12 percent rise to $252,663.  

The MAP Survey is the biggest benchmarking study of public accounting firms. The survey reports data for the public accounting profession overall as well as firm details that are broken down by size and region.

The 2025 survey, that was fielded from May 5 through Jul. 1, reveals KPIs and other important financial, and practice management information from fiscal year 2024, including data gathered for the first time on firms’ artificial intelligence and automation utilization.