Accounting and Finance roles sit at the centre of how organisations manage performance, control risk and make decisions. But benchmarking these roles accurately is not always straightforward.
Qualification matters. So does experience. Yet neither tells the whole story.
A Financial Accountant focused primarily on reporting can have a very different remit from a Finance Business Partner working closely with operational leaders. A Finance Manager in one organisation may sit below a Financial Controller, while in another they may have responsibility for much of the Finance function.
At senior level, those differences become even more important. The size of the organisation, breadth of responsibility and level of commercial involvement can materially change what sits behind a Finance leadership title.
For employers, this means salary benchmarking should begin with the scope and capability required, rather than the job title alone.
For Finance professionals, salary data is most useful when it helps put experience, responsibility and potential next steps into context. Qualification may open the door, but progression can move through technical Accounting, Tax, Business Partnering, Finance Management, Financial Control or leadership.
The Connexus Salary Guide 2026 provides benchmarks across that progression, from trainee and part-qualified positions through to senior Finance leadership, alongside a separate view of Financial Services and Fintech roles.
Accounting & Finance salaries in Ireland for 2026
| Role | 1–3 years | 3–5 years | 5+ years |
| Trainee Accountant/Accounts Assistant | €28–35k | €32–38k | €38–42k |
| Part-Qualified Accountant/Tax Consultant | €30–40k | €40–45k | €45–50k+ |
| Newly Qualified Accountant ACA/ACCA/CIMA | €50–58k | €58–65k | €65–70k |
| Chartered Accountant (1–5 yrs PQE) | €55–65k | €65–75k | €75k+ |
| Financial Accountant/Finance Business Partner | €60–70k | €70–80k | €80–95k |
| Chartered Tax Advisor | €50–60k | €60–75k | €75–100k+ |
| Credit Control/AP/AR Specialist | €30–38k | €38–45k | €45–55k |
| Payroll Specialist/Manager | €40–50k | €50–60k | €60–75k |
| Finance Manager | €60–70k | €70–80k | €80–90k |
| Financial Controller | €70–80k | €80–95k | €95–120k |
| Finance Director / Head Finance / CFO | – | €100–130k | €130–180k |
What changes as accountants move through qualification?
Qualification creates one of the clearest points of distinction in the salary data.
Part-Qualified Accountant / Tax Consultant roles are benchmarked at €30k–€40k for 1–3 years, rising to €45k–€50k+ at 5+ years.
For Newly Qualified Accountants with ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualifications, the benchmark begins at €50k–€58k, moving to €58k–€65k and then €65k–€70k.
Chartered Accountants with 1–5 years’ PQE are benchmarked higher again, starting at €55k–€65k and reaching €75k+ at 5+ years.
That makes qualification an important part of salary benchmarking, but employers should be careful not to make it the entire brief.
The wider Salary Survey reports that 59.1% of respondents prioritise skills over job titles or qualifications when hiring.
Those two findings are not contradictory. In Accountancy, particular qualifications can form an important part of the requirement while employers still need to assess what someone can actually do.
Once candidates reach similar qualification and experience levels, differences in technical exposure, commercial involvement, stakeholder responsibility and leadership experience can become increasingly relevant to the appointment.
Newly qualified accountant salaries
For employers hiring a Newly Qualified Accountant, the 2026 benchmark is:
- €50k–€58k at 1–3 years
- €58k–€65k at 3–5 years
- €65k–€70k at 5+ years
The Salary Survey also identifies Newly Qualified Accountant as an in-demand role.
The figures give employers a useful starting point, but the opportunity itself still needs to be clearly defined.
A newly qualified professional assessing several roles is not simply comparing salaries. The nature of the work and the experience they will gain can shape where that position takes their career next.
For employers, that means the hiring proposition needs to explain more than the qualification required and salary offered. The role should make clear what responsibility the person will gain and where they will contribute.
Chartered Accountant salaries
Chartered Accountant (1–5 yrs PQE) moves from €55,000–€65,000 to €75,000+ across the experience bands.
Again, qualification provides useful context but does not fully describe the role.
Two qualified accountants with similar PQE may have developed very different experience depending on the environments, responsibilities and problems they have handled.
Finance Manager salaries
Finance Manager is benchmarked at €60,000–€70,000, €70,000–€80,000 and €80,000–€90,000.
The challenge with this title is scope.
In one organisation, a Finance Manager may manage a defined part of the Finance function. In a smaller organisation, the same title may carry much broader responsibility.
Employers therefore need to benchmark the job behind the title.
Financial Controller salaries
This is one of the most important distinctions when scoping a senior finance appointment.
The survey benchmarks Finance Manager at:
- €60k–€70k at 1–3 years
- €70k–€80k at 3–5 years
- €80k–€90k at 5+ years
Financial Controller is benchmarked at:
- €70k–€80k at 1–3 years
- €80k–€95k at 3–5 years
- €95k–€120k at 5+ years
The obvious difference is salary, but that is not where the hiring decision should begin.
An employer needs to determine the level of finance capability and responsibility required.
If the person will be expected to carry broader ownership of the finance function, the organisation should make sure that the job specification, seniority and salary all reflect that expectation.
This becomes particularly important in smaller, scaling or founder-led organisations where a finance title may cover a wider remit than the same title in a larger finance structure.
Trying to fit Financial Controller-level expectations into a lower-level brief can create a mismatch before the search has even started.
The gap between Finance Manager and senior Finance leadership
Looking across the salary table also helps employers think about the structure of the finance team.
At 5+ years, Finance Manager is benchmarked at €80k–€90k and Financial Controller at €95k–€120k, while Finance Director / Head of Finance / CFO reaches €130k–€180k.
Those benchmarks should not be interpreted as a prescribed career ladder. They do, however, illustrate how salary expectations change as roles move towards broader finance responsibility and leadership.
For an organisation planning its next finance hire, the question is therefore not simply:
“What does a Finance Manager earn?”
A more useful question is:
“What level of finance capability does the business need, and which market benchmark best represents it?”
That distinction can help avoid hiring a person into a role that is under-scoped on paper but significantly broader in practice.
Tax, payroll and specialist Finance careers
Not every Finance career progresses towards Financial Controller or CFO.
Chartered Tax Advisor reaches €75,000–€100,000+ at 5+ years and is marked high demand in the source.
Payroll Specialist/Manager reaches €60,000–€75,000.
Credit Control/AP/AR Specialist reaches €45,000–€55,000.
These benchmarks are useful because they show specialist routes alongside the more familiar Accounting-to-Finance-leadership path.
Financial Services & Fintech salary benchmarks
The Salary Survey also includes adjacent Financial Services and Fintech roles.
| Role | 1–3 years | 3–5 years | 5+ years |
| Fintech Analyst | €35–45k | €45–60k | €60–80k+ est. |
| Fintech Product/Client-Facing | €55–75k | €70–110k | €90k+ |
| Finance Analyst | €40–55k | €55–70k | €70–90k+ est. |
| Treasury/Credit Risk Roles | €50–65k | €65–85k | €85–110k+ est. |
| Asset Management/Funds Support | €45–60k | €60–80k | €80–100k+ est. |
| AML/KYC/Financial Crime | €35–45k | €42–48k | €50k+ |
| In-House Compliance/Risk Manager | €55–70k | €70–90k | €90–120k+ est. |
| PCF Role – Head of Traded Markets | – | €110–120k | €120–140k+ |
Skills versus qualifications: it is not an either/or decision
Finance gives us an interesting perspective on another survey finding.
Across respondents, 59.1% prioritise skills over job titles or qualifications when hiring.
Yet the Accountancy salary data itself distinguishes clearly between Part-Qualified, Newly Qualified and Chartered Accountants.
That does not mean one finding invalidates the other.
Instead, it suggests employers need to distinguish between credentials required for a particular role and the capabilities required to succeed in it.
Where a professional qualification is necessary, it should form part of the brief. But employers may still need evidence of commercial judgement, stakeholder capability, leadership or other experience depending on the position.
The stronger hiring brief therefore does both: it identifies the qualifications that genuinely matter and defines the skills and experience the business needs.
Salary alone will not determine whether an opportunity is competitive
The Salary Survey’s wider findings also show that candidates are assessing more than pay.
Salary, company culture and work-life balance were identified as the most critical factors, with career growth and benefits also important.
For employers, salary benchmarking remains important. If the proposed package is significantly out of line with the relevant market, other elements of the opportunity may not overcome that problem.
But being within the right range is not the end of the hiring proposition.
An experienced finance professional will also want to understand the scope of the role, what they will be responsible for, who they will work with, what influence they will have and what the position could mean for their career.
This is especially relevant when approaching candidates who are not actively applying for jobs.
A practical way to benchmark an Accounting & Finance role
Rather than starting with a title and looking up its salary, employers can use the data more effectively by working through the role in stages.
- Start with the business requirement. What does the organisation need this person to take responsibility for?
- Define the level of the role. Is this a developing, qualified, management or leadership appointment?
- Identify necessary qualifications. Determine which credentials are genuinely required rather than simply customary.
- Separate technical and commercial capability. Establish how much of the role centres on accounting delivery and how much involves partnering with or influencing the wider business.
- Define the scope of responsibility. Consider ownership, stakeholder exposure, decision-making and people leadership.
- Select the closest market benchmark. Use the salary table that best reflects the actual position rather than the preferred title.
- Consider the wider proposition. Salary needs to sit alongside the responsibilities, working environment, career opportunity and other factors candidates will assess.
This approach makes the salary benchmark the final test of a well-defined role rather than the starting point for creating one.
What should Accounting & Finance professionals take from the 2026 data?
For finance professionals, salary benchmarks can help establish whether an opportunity is broadly aligned with the market. They are less useful when treated as a fixed measure of what an individual “should” earn.
The data shows multiple career paths.
Someone may progress through professional qualification into Financial Accountant or Finance Business Partner work. Another person may develop specialist expertise in tax or payroll. Others will move towards Finance Manager, Financial Controller or wider finance leadership.
The right next role therefore depends on more than whether it carries a higher salary.
For someone aiming towards finance leadership, an opportunity that increases ownership, stakeholder exposure or breadth of responsibility may be particularly relevant. For someone building specialist expertise, a different route may make more sense.
Salary provides a useful benchmark around that decision. It does not make the decision on its own.
Use the 2026 salary benchmarks as a starting point
Salary data is most valuable when it helps an organisation make a better hiring decision.
For Accounting & Finance employers, that means using the benchmarks alongside a clear understanding of the capability the business needs today and the responsibility the successful person will carry.
For finance professionals, the figures provide market context while leaving room to consider the broader value of an opportunity: the work, responsibility, exposure and direction it provides.
The full Connexus Salary Survey 2026 includes further benchmarks and hiring insights across Accounting & Finance and Ireland’s wider professional talent market.
Accounting & Finance salary FAQs
What does a newly qualified accountant earn in Ireland?
Newly Qualified Accountant ACA/ACCA/CIMA is benchmarked at €50,000–€58,000, €58,000–€65,000 and €65,000–€70,000.
What does a Finance Manager earn?
€60,000–€70,000, €70,000–€80,000 and €80,000–€90,000.
What does a Financial Controller earn?
€70,000–€80,000, €80,000–€95,000 and €95,000–€120,000.
How should employers benchmark a Finance role?
Start with the scope of the position rather than the title. Consider the qualification required, technical and commercial responsibilities, stakeholder exposure, level of ownership and leadership remit, then compare that requirement with the closest relevant salary benchmark.
*Salary figures and survey findings are based on the Connexus Salary Survey 2026.
