The number of accounting jobs that list AI skills in some form or another has jumped dramatically in the course of just one year.
This is according to a study done by Datarails, an FP&A solutions provider, which analyzed over 5,000 US job postings across four core finance roles (CFO, FP&A, controller and accountant) between January 2025 and January 2026. It found the proportion of job listings for accounting positions that list some sort of AI skills requirement has gone from 18% in 2025 to 30% this year, the largest year-over-year rise among any other function. Meanwhile, FP&A professionals faced the most aggressive demand for AI skills, with 43% of postings now requiring them, up from 33% a year earlier. Mentions of AI for the controller role also rose 4%, and the need for AI is now found in 24% of controller job ads.
As for what exact skills are required, some examples include identifying and implementing process improvements, including automation and AI-enabled solutions, to increase efficiency and accuracy, or an interest in or experience with applying AI or automation tools to improve accounting workflows.
Accountants also saw a rise in demand for partnership skills (i.e., the ability to coordinate with other parts of the business), going from 16% to 24% in a year, as well as financial modeling skills, which are now mentioned in 10% of all job listings for accountants and 12.9% of listings for controllers. Datarails suggested that as basic accounting tasks get automated, accountants perhaps need to justify their value with higher-order skills.
Four things employers mentioned less are (strangely enough) communications skills, self-motivation, critical thinking and problem-solving. The number of job ads requiring communications skill dropped 2%, those naming self-motivation dropped 4.9%, those demanding critical thinking dropped 5.1% and those wanting problem-solving skills dropped 5.7%. Jonathan Marciano, vice president of brand communications with Datarails, felt it was not so much that accountants don't need these skills anymore but that employers simply assume any competent accountant would already have them. Perhaps.
"Based on three years of doing this research, skills mentioned less frequently in job listings are often those considered too obvious to specify," said Marciano. "Communication and critical thinking may have simply reached that threshold for accountants. That said, there's a less comfortable alternative reading. As AI takes on more of the analytical and problem-solving workload, some employers may genuinely expect less of these skills from the humans on their team. Critical thinking is precisely the skill you need to know whether to trust what AI is telling you."
One thing that has not changed is that accountants need to know how to use Excel. The poll found 82% of accountant jobs specifically listed Excel in their ads, the exact same proportion as last year, as did 75% of controller job ads, also the same as last year. The only change was a slight rise in FP&A jobs explicitly mentioning it, going from 84% to 87% in a year.
