Moving from Practice Tax to In-House: A Career Guide

The move from a practice tax department to an in-house role is the most common route into corporate tax teams, and one of the least well prepared for. The work looks similar from the outside — the same legislation, the same computations — and is different in almost every respect that matters day to day. You trade a portfolio of clients for one business, technical breadth for commercial depth, and a structured career ladder for a flatter one where progression depends on the business rather than a promotion cycle. This guide covers what actually changes, the skills worth building before and after you move, when the move prices best, what to expect on salary, and how to make the case to an employer.

It is written for tax seniors, assistant managers, managers and senior managers in accountancy and law firms. If you are a newly qualified accountant moving out of audit or general practice rather than a tax department, the broader guide to moving from practice to industry as a newly qualified is the better starting point.

What genuinely changes

One client instead of thirty. The defining difference. In practice you see many businesses shallowly; in-house you see one deeply. That suits people who want to understand a business properly and frustrates those who enjoy variety — be honest with yourself about which you are before you move.

You become the internal client. Rather than advising and moving on, you live with the consequences of the advice. That changes how you give it: an in-house tax professional recommends what the business can actually implement, not what is technically optimal in isolation.

Chargeable time disappears. No timesheets, no utilisation, no realisation. What replaces it is less structured and, for some people, less comfortable — you decide what is worth your time rather than having it decided by what is billable.

You buy advice rather than give it. One of the biggest practical adjustments. Managing external advisers — scoping, challenging, controlling cost — is a core in-house skill that practice never teaches, because in practice you are the adviser. Our guide to managing external tax advisers covers what good looks like.

And you have to be understood. In practice you talk to finance directors and other tax people. In-house you explain positions to sales directors, operations managers and boards, and the ability to do that plainly becomes as valuable as the technical knowledge.

The day-to-day work, side by side

The clearest way to see the change is to compare what fills a typical month. The technical content overlaps; the rhythm, the audience and the accountability do not.

The compliance itself is covered in more detail in our guide to in-house corporation tax compliance. The short version: you are rarely preparing every computation yourself, but you are always accountable for it.

Governance work you may not have seen in practice

Larger businesses carry obligations that practice teams usually touch only from the outside. Under the Senior Accounting Officer rules, qualifying large companies must have a named individual certify that appropriate tax accounting arrangements are in place, and large businesses must publish a UK tax strategy. Large companies must also notify HMRC of certain uncertain tax treatments. The SAO rules are set out in HMRCHMRC’s Senior Accounting Officer guidance. In-housersquo;s Senior Accounting Officer guidance manual. In-house, the tax manager typically does the groundwork behind each of these — mapping processes, testing controls, drafting the strategy — so it is worth reading up before interview if you are targeting a large group. For multinational groups, the global minimum tax adds another layer, covered in our note on Pillar Two for tax teams.

Skills to build before and after the move

Practice gives you the technical base. Three skills decide how quickly you become useful in-house, and you can start on all of them before you hand in your notice.

Tax provisioning and tax accounting

The single most common gap in practice CVs. In-house, the tax charge in the accounts is yours: the current tax estimate, deferred tax on timing differences, the effective tax rate reconciliation, and the disclosures under FRS 102 Section 29 or IAS 12. If your practice role has been pure compliance, volunteer for provision reviews on audit clients, or ask to shadow the tax accounting work on a group. Our guide to deferred tax fundamentals is a sensible refresher, and the year-end audit relationship — where your provision will be tested — is covered in managing the year-end audit relationship.

Business partnering

In-house tax people add most value when they are brought in early — before the contract is signed, the bonus scheme is announced or the new entity is set up. That only happens if commercial colleagues see you as helpful rather than as a brake. The skills are the same ones finance business partners use: understanding how the business makes money, asking what the colleague is trying to achieve, and offering a workable route rather than a list of risks. Our commercial business partnering guide translates well to tax.

Systems and data

In practice, data arrives in a trial balance pack. In-house, you will need to get it yourself from the ERP, the consolidation tool and the payroll system, and often to influence how transactions are coded so the tax data is right first time. Confidence with spreadsheets is assumed; familiarity with ERP reporting, VAT coding logic and data extraction is a genuine differentiator. Where a business is changing systems, tax requirements are often bolted on late — an in-house tax manager who engages early, as described in our guide to migrating finance systems, saves the business real cost.

When the move prices best

Qualification — CTA from the Chartered Institute of Taxation, or ICAEW / ACCA with genuine tax experience — is the baseline for both markets. There is a genuine sweet spot, and it sits at roughly three to eight years of practice experience.

Earlier than three years and you are competing against candidates with more autonomous experience, and you may not yet have the technical confidence in-house roles require — there is nobody down the corridor to check with.

Between three and eight years is where in-house employers are most active. You are qualified or close to it, you have run client relationships, you have handled real technical work, and you are still affordable relative to a senior in-house hire.

Beyond eight years or so the move becomes harder, not easier. Practice progression starts to price you above equivalent in-house roles, and employers question whether a senior practice specialist will adapt to a narrower, more commercial remit. It is entirely doable — and it usually means targeting Head of Tax rather than manager roles, or accepting a lateral move on money.

What the CTA is worth in-house

In-house employers value the CTA because it signals technical depth without a partner behind you. In our experience it typically adds a premium of around £8k–£18k over an equivalent candidate without it, with the higher end at senior manager and Head of Tax level, where the employer is relying on your judgement alone. Dual qualification — ACA or ACCA plus CTA — is particularly marketable for roles that combine tax with provisioning and group reporting. For junior roles, the Association of Taxation Technicians qualification is a recognised stepping stone. If you are part-way through the CTA, finish it before moving if you can: in-house study support varies widely, and the qualification is harder to complete without a technical department around you.

Timing the move in the year

Two practical timing points. First, in-house hiring for tax roles tends to follow the business’s year-end and budget cycle rather than the practice busy season, so roles appear throughout the year. Second, practice notice periods are commonly one to three months at manager level, and leaving straight after a promotion or bonus date is usually better value than leaving just before it. Our guides to notice periods in finance and the counter-offer — which practice firms often make to good tax managers — are worth reading before you resign.

What to expect on salary

The honest picture on money: the move is usually broadly neutral to modestly positive at manager level and below, and it can be a small step back at senior manager and above. What frequently improves is the wider package — bonus structures, pension, and hours — and the trade most people are actually making is predictability and depth rather than headline salary. International tax and transfer pricing specialists moving into larger groups typically sit around £85k–£120k, and interim in-house tax work typically pays £450–£700 a day (see our interim tax day rates). Benchmarks are in our in-house tax manager salary guide and the wider salary guides, and our guide to negotiating your finance salary covers how to compare a practice package with an in-house one fairly.

Which in-house route to target

The specialism you carry from practice largely determines where you land, and some routes are considerably easier than others.

Corporate tax is the widest route — most in-house tax roles are corporate tax roles, and practice corporate tax experience maps directly. See our corporate tax manager job description for what employers specify.

VAT is the scarcest and best-paid transfer. Indirect tax specialists are in short supply in-house and the premium is real — covered in our VAT manager guide.

Employment tax is growing fastest and transfers well, particularly for anyone with IR35 and benefits experience — HMRC’s off-payroll guidance is the reference point employers expect familiarity with, and our guide to when employers hire employment tax in-house shows where the roles come from.

Private client is the hardest, because most businesses have no in-house need for it — the realistic routes are family offices, owner-managed businesses where personal and corporate intertwine, or a pivot into corporate tax. Our comparison of private client versus corporate tax covers the distinction.

Transfer pricing and international transfer well into larger groups, and barely at all into mid-market businesses that do not have the complexity.

Business size matters as much as specialism. In a mid-market business you may be the first and only tax hire, reporting to the Financial Controller or Finance Director, with a broad remit across corporate tax, VAT and employment taxes. In a large group you are more likely to join an established team with a narrower brief. Our employer-side guide to hiring a first in-house tax manager explains what the first-hire role looks like from the other side of the table.

Making the case at interview

In-house employers are testing three things beyond the technical, and practice candidates often prepare only for the technical.

Can you translate? Expect to be asked to explain something — a VAT treatment, why a bonus costs more than its face value — as you would to a non-specialist. It is a live test and it is frequently the most revealing part of the interview.

Do you have commercial judgement? Which risks matter and which are theoretical. Practice trains you to identify every issue; in-house rewards knowing which ones deserve the business’s attention. Prepare an example of advice you have given that took the client’s practical constraints into account.

Will you cope with being alone? Most in-house tax roles are single-person or small functions. Employers ask, in various ways, whether you can hold a position without a partner to escalate to. Our in-house tax interview questions guide sets out what employers actually ask, with the reasoning behind each question.

And on your CV: translate the practice language. Not “managed a portfolio of clients” but “prepared and reviewed corporation tax computations for groups with turnover up to £120m, including [the specific technical areas]”. Employers are matching your experience against their business, and portfolio language makes that harder than it needs to be. Our guide to writing an accountancy CV covers structure and length.

A short preparation checklist

• Read the company’s latest filed accounts and find the tax note: the effective tax rate, deferred tax balances and any uncertain positions disclosed.
• If it is a large business, read its published UK tax strategy — it tells you the board’s risk appetite.
• Prepare one plain-English explanation of a technical point you know well, timed at under two minutes.
• Prepare one example each of provisioning work, adviser management (even informal), and advice that changed because of commercial constraints.
• Have a view on what you would do in your first 90 days — our guide to the first 90 days in a new finance role is a useful frame.

What people miss about the move

Three honest observations from people who have made it. Progression is flatter. There is no promotion cycle; you progress when the business grows or when you move. The isolation is real at first — no cohort, no technical department, no corridor conversation. Most people find a network externally, through CIOT branch events or industry tax groups, and value it more than they expected. And the work is less varied but more consequential: fewer different problems, but you see them through and live with the outcome, which most people who make the move say they prefer.

Two further points are worth knowing. Keeping technically current takes more effort without a firm’s know-how team, so budget for your own CPD and subscriptions, or ask for them in the offer. And the move is not one-way: experienced in-house tax people are valued by practice firms for their commercial insight, so you are not closing a door.

If you are weighing it, the wider transition is covered in our guide to moving from practice to in-house, and the progression once there in tax senior to tax manager.

Frequently asked questions

Will I take a pay cut moving from practice tax to in-house?

Usually not at manager level and below, where the move is broadly neutral to modestly positive. At senior manager and director level it can be a small step back on base salary, often offset by bonus, pension and more predictable hours. In-house Tax Managers in London typically earn £60k–£80k, Senior Tax Managers £75k–£100k and Heads of Tax £95k–£140k.

Do I need the CTA to move in-house?

Not always — ACA or ACCA with solid tax experience is accepted for many roles. But the CTA typically adds around £8k–£18k and widens your options, particularly for standalone tax roles where there is no one else to check your work.

What is the biggest skills gap for practice candidates?

Tax accounting. Many practice candidates have strong compliance and advisory experience but little exposure to current and deferred tax provisions in the group accounts. Building that before you move makes you noticeably more competitive.

When is the best time to move?

In career terms, between about three and eight years of practice experience, when employers are most active. In calendar terms, after a bonus or promotion date and with your notice period in mind — roles come up throughout the year.

Can I move in-house from private client tax?

Yes, but the options are narrower: family offices, owner-managed groups, or a deliberate pivot into corporate or employment tax. Think about the destination before you start applying.

Is interim work a way to test in-house?

It can be, for experienced candidates. Interim in-house tax roles typically pay £450–£700 a day and are often used to cover provisioning peaks, projects or gaps. See our interim tax recruitment page for how these roles work.