The nation's major accounting partnerships have grown by 8.1 per cent in the 12 months to June 30, 2016. There are now collectively 3314 partners at these 15 major firms, up by around 250 on last year.

The big four, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG are behemoths, with almost 2200 partners between them, almost double the partnership numbers of the surveyed mid-tier firms combined, according to the 2015-16 edition of the Accounting Partnership Survey.