When career momentum stalls: the retention risk professional services firms can miss

Article Summary

• Why the mid-career phase creates a particular retention risk for legal and accountancy firms
• What research reveals about progression, work quality and the early signs of career stall
• How firms can find out whether the career they promise is the one people experience

By the middle of a professional career lawyers and accountants are often doing work their firm can least afford to lose.

They may already be central to client relationships and to the day-to-day development of junior colleagues, with experience and knowledge that would be difficult to replace. Their expertise is also more valuable in the external market and, by this stage, they have a much clearer view of whether the firm’s promises about development and progression are likely to be fulfilled.

Legal rankings and insights company Chambers describes sustaining engagement during this mid-career phase, particularly among senior associates, as a “critical” challenge for law firms. Its Leading Teams research found that senior associates were the least satisfied group of fee-earners, with 61% reporting high job satisfaction, compared with 76% of trainees and 75% of partners. Two in five associates did not expect to remain with their firm for another five years.

The pressure is also visible in accountancy. ACCA’s Global Talent Trends 2026 finds that 52% of finance and accountancy professionals expect their next move to take them outside their current firm. While the research is global and covers the wider profession it does reflect the labour market in which many UK practices now compete for qualified and experienced people.

Why this career stage matters in professional services

Mid-career itself is not a fixed grade across professional services. Chambers uses the term when discussing senior associates, while the Burning Glass Institute and New York University define it as the period between 10 and 15 years from a person’s first professional role. The precise definition matters less than the point in the career when someone has built expertise that other employers value but still cannot see clearly what comes next in their own firm. By then they also have far more information on which to judge whether the firm is giving them the career they expected.

Mid-level associates often sit between junior teams and partners, taking on substantial responsibility for work and clients without gaining equivalent influence over how this work is staffed or prioritised. Accountancy managers can find themselves in a similar position, having more responsibility while still lacking a clear view of how they will move towards director or partner. Firms increasingly depend on these people at the same point that the external market begins to value them more highly.

When responsibility grows faster than opportunity

Professional services firms usually have formal career and appraisal systems. The issue is whether people believe these systems will help them progress. An associate may understand what is required for promotion but still have little sense of when an opportunity is likely to arise or whether anyone senior is actively backing them. An accountant may take on a larger portfolio and more responsibility without seeing how that experience will lead to a bigger role or reward.

People may learn more about their prospects from the work they are given than from the firm’s career framework. People notice who gets the work that builds judgement and client credibility. Chambers found that access to high-quality work and confidence that partners were nurturing future leaders were important to associates’ engagement. If opportunities depend too much on being visible to the right people or on an individual partner’s preference then people in the same firm can end up having very different careers.

Workload also shapes how people view their future with the firm. The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s review of workplace culture found that a quarter of respondents did not regard their firm’s culture as positive, with long hours and workload among the recurring concerns. Two-thirds had billable-hour targets and billable hours were by far the aspect of working culture they most wanted to change. Only 30% said their firm did not expect calls or emails to be answered outside normal working hours. The Legal Services Board has since identified excessive hours as an ongoing threat to lawyers’ mental health and wellbeing.

This becomes harder when people are taking on more responsibility without gaining much more say over the work. Demanding periods are part of professional services but people are more likely to accept them when they can see that the experience is building their career. It is different when the workload keeps growing but the job itself seems to be going nowhere.

Pay remains an important part of the decision. ACCA found that 55% of respondents were dissatisfied with their current pay. A higher offer elsewhere may be what finally persuades someone to leave but it may not be what made them start looking. If someone has already lost confidence in their future with the firm a new offer becomes much harder to resist.

Career stall begins before resignation

New US research from the Burning Glass Institute and New York University gives this loss of momentum a useful name: career stall. The researchers defined a stall as five years without meaningful promotion alongside negligible real wage growth. Almost a quarter of the 1.3 million mid-career professionals studied met both conditions, including 23.2% of accountants. The US figures cannot be applied directly to UK firms but they illustrate a risk that conventional retention measures can miss: someone may remain productive and apparently settled while their career has stopped developing.

More importantly, the pattern was visible at the 10-year point. Those who later stalled had already received fewer internal promotions and experienced much lower wage growth than peers who continued to progress. The research cannot establish whether these early differences caused the later stall but it gives firms reason to look for signs that someone’s career has stopped moving before the problem becomes harder to reverse.

When the work and the career route are changing

All of this is happening while AI and new service models are changing professional work. Investors in People’s Finding the Frequency research found that 27% of employees had considered leaving because of the amount of organisational change they were experiencing. The research is cross-sector, although its findings matter for firms asking people to develop new capabilities while it is still unclear how roles and routes to promotion will change.

Experienced professionals need to understand what the changes mean for their own work and whether the career they thought they were building still exists in the same form. If firms talk to them about these changes early they are more likely to hear concerns before uncertainty becomes a reason to leave.

Does the career promise hold up?

Most firms already collect plenty of information about careers and engagement. But an overall score can hide very different experiences within the same firm. What matters is whether the career and culture the firm talks about are what people experience.

The We invest in people framework looks at whether people are genuinely developing through their work and whether their contribution is recognised, whichever team or practice area they work in.

An independent assessment can show whether what the firm says about careers matches what people experience. It can also reveal where a system that looks good on paper works very differently between teams or practice areas. This gives leaders a clearer picture of what needs to change and whether the culture they describe to candidates is what people find when they join.

Losing people at this stage is expensive because firms increasingly rely on them for important work and to develop more junior colleagues. The question is whether their careers are developing as quickly as the responsibility being placed on them.

Mid-career retention and progression checklist

• Career route: Can experienced professionals see a credible route forward and understand how progression decisions are made?
• Work allocation: Is access to complex assignments and meaningful client responsibility shaped by development needs as well as immediate availability?
• Sponsorship: Do people have senior advocates and can they progress without depending entirely on one partner or practice leader?
• Workload and control: As responsibility grows, do people gain enough influence over how the work is delivered?
• Recognition: Does the firm recognise contribution beyond billing and utilisation?
• Career momentum: Does the firm notice when someone’s role has stopped developing before they become a flight risk?
• Change: Do people understand what AI and changing service models mean for their work and future career?
• Evidence: Can leaders see where the career they promise is being experienced differently across the firm?

Explore further research and practical guidance for legal, accountancy and other professional services firms in the Investors in People Professional Services hub.

Sources

1. 1.Chambers, Leading Teams: engagement, motivation and flight risk in the UK legal talent market. https://crm.chambers.com/l/854103/2025-11-06/kjdfr/854103/1762442238jHqp6Nc6/Leading_Teams_Report_2025.pdf
2. 2.ACCA, Global Talent Trends 2026. https://stories.accaglobal.com/global-talent-trends-2026/index.html
3. 3.Solicitors Regulation Authority, Workplace Culture Thematic Review, 2022. https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/research-publications/workplace-culture-thematic-review/
4. 4.Legal Services Board, Annex B: The case for regulatory intervention, July 2025. https://legalservicesboard.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/04.2-Annex-B-The-case-for-regulatory-intervention.pdf
5. 5.Burning Glass Institute and New York University, Sidetracked: The Hidden Crisis in Mid-Career Mobility. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6197797102be715f55c0e0a1/t/6a188d7fca504d1b103d1a66/1779993983643/Sidetracked_04072026_v2May.pdf