Accountants: rising incomes, less gender and generation gaps
In sixteen years (2007-2023), per capita turnover has grown twice as fast as GDP. Women have caught up the 3.4 % differential to men
The total income of accountants from 2008 to 2024 (tax years 2007 and 2023) increased by 68.6%, more than double the GDP, which grew by 32.2%. The average per-capita income of chartered accountants over 17 years grew by 34.8%, while per-capita GDP grew by 30.7% against an inflation rate of 38.4%; over the same period the category grew by 26.9%, while for the Italian population the growth rate was 0.8%. The average annual growth rate for accountants is 2%, compared to about 1.3% for gross salaries of private employees
These are the findings of the National Foundation for the profession's research 'The incomes of accountants. A territorial analysis between convergence, cluster analysis and econometric modelling'.
The objective of the survey
This survey, which took about a year to complete, was done to study the existing relationships between average incomes and economic indicators. The next step involves the development of a synthetic indicator of the economic and territorial structure to quantify the territory's demand for professional services. 'In launching this work,' explains Tommaso Di Nardo, coordinator of the Foundation's economic-statistics area, 'we wanted to understand the factors that determine the gap between men and women and between young and old. An analysis of the data shows that in wealthier areas, income differences increase'. Alongside the category data, territorial data were collected, but these alone are not enough to explain the differences. "The province of Milan, for example," explains Di Nardo, "should have, on the basis of the elaborated model, an average income higher than the one recorded, on the other hand there are other localities that have a higher performance than what should be expected, this means that in addition to the economic data of the territory, other factors come into play that affect the results".
The North/South picture
Without entering into the merits of the causes, some known and others to be identified, in 17 years the South-North income gap has decreased by 4.9 percentage points from 62.3% to 57.4%; on the other hand, in the same period the economic gap in terms of GDP per capita has slightly increased.
In absolute terms, the average income in the North has risen from 79,933 euros in 2007 to 105,591 euros in 2023; while the average income in the South was 30,099 in 2007 and has risen to 45,006 euros in 17 years. At the local level the gap is even more marked, Bolzano is the richest with an average income of 164,288 euro while Reggio Calabria is the tail end with 33,698 euro.
