In the USA, Labor Day has been and gone, summer is drawing to a close, and firms are already pushing ahead with their final recruitment plans for the year. In Europe it is no different. 2026 has been a busy year for hiring across the forensic accounting, investigations and disputes world.
Here are the recurring trends the team at Leonid Group has picked up on so far this year, and what we think they mean for firms and candidates heading into 2027.
Team moves and acquisitions have taken priority over individual partner hires
The headline story of 2026 has been consolidation. While the Grant Thornton Advisors / CBIZ deal made international news given its size and scope, it is the steady flow of smaller transactions that better captures where the market is heading. Increasingly, firms are choosing to acquire capability in blocks, rather than build it one partner at a time.
GA Group, the California-headquartered financial advisory firm, has acquired two family law and litigation practices in the last three months, onboarding Trampe Settles and The Kaseno CPA Firm.
Just this week, Delta Consulting Group, the construction and litigation expert services firm, announced the acquisition of London-headquartered Osborne Partners - founded by former FTI Consulting EMEA leader Chris Osborne - to drive its international expansion.
We have seen the same instinct play out at the individual level. During a recent search project in the USA to hire a matrimonial litigation partner, the candidate our client ultimately preferred was one who was bringing a small team with them. That meant the group could hit the ground running, with established working relationships and a shared book of matters, rather than spending a year rebuilding a bench.
In a specialism this reliant on reputation, relationships and referral networks, a team or a practice brings proven chemistry and a pipeline of work that a single lateral hire cannot. For hiring firms, it is a faster route to scale and to open up new geographies; for the teams moving, it offers security and continuity. We expect this preference for capability in blocks to persist well into 2027.
Investigations have begun to make a comeback
2025 was a slow year for investigations recruitment. The US government’s change in approach to FCPA enforcement and corporate monitorships led to job cuts across the consulting industry. Both the largest firms and several expert services firms that had invested heavily in investigations made significant redundancies, and hiring slowed almost to a halt.
There were some exceptions. A small number of firms used the downturn as an opportunity, acquiring individuals who would not normally have been available on the open market. Others - typically smaller firms working local, mid-market matters - were largely insulated, because they had never been dependent on the large, multi-year, government-driven mandates that dried up.
This has shifted in 2026. We have seen growth in the number of investigations roles at firms across every tier, from boutiques to the Big Four. It is a genuine recovery, though we would caution against overstating it: volumes remain well below the ten-year average, and the recovery looks more like a return of confidence than a return to the peak. Firms are hiring again because they believe the pipeline is coming back, and not because it has fully returned.
The USA leads the charge, but the UK and Europe have picked up
2025 was also a slower year for forensic recruitment across the UK and EMEA. Green shoots have emerged in 2026, however, and hiring across the region is now at its busiest in three years.
Two forces are driving this. American firms have shown renewed appetite for putting boots on the ground in Europe - the Delta / Osbourne deal is one example of a broader trend - and local advisory firms have seen a corresponding uptick in growth as they compete to retain and attract talent. Regulatory activity across the UK and the EU, from economic crime reform to a steady stream of contentious disputes, has helped underpin demand.
We would add a note of caution, as we always do when talking about market direction: hiring appetite and completed hires are not the same thing, and cross-border moves in particular remain sensitive to compensation expectations, notice periods and immigration considerations. Firms serious about European expansion in 2027 would do well to plan for longer timelines than a domestic hire would require.
Active candidates outnumber jobs, but that brings its own challenge
Cast your mind back to 2021 and 2022, when recruiting forensic accountants was a genuine struggle. For every active candidate there were four or five roles, and the resulting war for talent drove significant wage growth.
In 2026, the picture has inverted. Candidates now outnumber the available roles, and while that might sound like an easier environment for hiring firms, it brings a challenge of its own.
When large numbers of candidates apply for every role, the difficulty lies in separating genuine talent from a crowded field. The risk now is that you hire the wrong person: someone who interviews well and reads impressively on paper, but who cannot do the work to the standard the role demands, or who is simply not the right fit for the team they are joining. In a volume market, a weak process quietly lets those people through.
Getting this right takes a more robust and deliberate approach than many firms relied on during the talent shortage, when speed was everything and the priority was simply to secure a suitable candidate before a competitor did. In 2026 the priorities are reversed. The firms hiring well are the ones treating a busy candidate market as a reason to be more rigorous, not less: sharper role definition, structured and competency-based interviewing, meaningful technical assessment, and proper reference checking. A mis-hire in an expert services or forensic role is expensive - in salary, in lost billable time, in the reputational cost of putting the wrong person in front of a client or a court - and a buyer’s market is precisely when that cost is easiest to overlook.
For candidates, the same dynamic is a reminder that they can’t rely on credentials alone. Demonstrable, recent, relevant experience - and the ability to articulate it clearly - is what now separates a shortlist from a longlist.
Looking ahead
Taken together, these trends point to a market that is recovering, but disciplined. Firms are growing again, but they are doing so selectively: buying teams rather than betting on individuals, rebuilding investigations capability cautiously, and expanding across borders with one eye on cost. For candidates, it is a more competitive field than at any point in the last five years, in which the quality and clarity of what you can demonstrate matters more than the length of your CV.
Our advice to firms heading into the back end of 2026 and into 2027 is simple: a candidate-rich market is an opportunity, but only for those with the process to make the most of it.
Volume is not the same as quality, and the firms that recognise the difference will be the ones that hire well.
If you would like to discuss the forensics, investigations and disputes hiring market, or a specific search, please contact Adam.Nelson@leonid-group.com