Ask most firms how they plan CPD and the honest answer is: by topic. Someone works in audit, so they book audit training. Someone works in tax, so they book tax training. It is logical, it satisfies the professional body, and it has worked for decades.

It is also, in 2027, only half a plan.

What a T-shaped skill set actually is

The idea is older than it sounds. David Guest gave it an early prominent description in 1991, and it later gained wider attention through Tim Brown, the former chief executive of design and innovation consultancy IDEO. IDEO used the model to describe specialists who could also collaborate and think beyond their own discipline.

We have adapted that principle for accountancy. The vertical stroke is deep technical expertise in areas such as tax, accounting and audit. The horizontal stroke is the wider capability that turns that knowledge into professional and commercial value.

That wider capability includes judgement, creative and critical thinking, communication, influence, leadership, commercial awareness and the confident use of technology and AI.

In simple terms, the vertical is what accountants know. The horizontal is how they think, lead, communicate and turn that knowledge into value.

Your vertical stroke is the technical work: FRS 102, the taxes that affect all clients, audit assertions and the other specialist knowledge you trained years to build.

Your horizontal stroke is applying that expertise well: explaining a complex position to a nervous business owner, challenging an answer that does not look right, pricing advisory work, coaching a junior and using AI without outsourcing professional judgement.

Why this matters more in 2027 than it did in 2017

Two things have changed, and they point the same way.

The first is what the profession expects of you. ICAEW's 2026 research into mid-tier firms found that 83% agree the role of the accountant will pivot from compliance and reporting towards judgement, systems thinking and ethical oversight by 2030. 68% agree that AI will reduce the need for early-career accountants, compress mid-tier roles, and require more senior accountants to have broader capabilities.

That is not a prediction about robots. It is a description of a job that is being redefined from the bottom up. While the ICAEW research may have been directional rather than definitive, it resonates with what we see amongst our 20:20 Innovation members.

The second is what is happening to the vertical stroke itself. Technical depth is not becoming less important. It is becoming less scarce.

Accountants are seeing the change first-hand. Clients increasingly arrive at calls and meetings with an AI-generated answer already in front of them, expecting their accountant to confirm it, correct it or put it into action.

That changes the conversation. The accountant is no longer simply providing the first answer. They must assess the client's starting point, test the sources and assumptions, identify what is missing and explain clearly why an apparently confident answer may still be wrong.

This is not an anti-AI argument. It is a development argument. AI can produce a plausible answer quickly, but professional value lies in knowing when not to rubber stamp it, asking the questions the client did not know to ask, and applying technical knowledge with judgement, context and professional scepticism. Those capabilities need to be developed deliberately.

The uncomfortable version

Most firms respond to all of this by buying more depth.

More technical CPD. More updates. It feels responsible, it is easy to justify to the professional body, and it is by far the simplest thing to purchase.

But depth is precisely the part that is getting cheaper and faster. Breadth is the part that is not. A firm that spends everything on the vertical stroke is investing hardest in the capability that is depreciating quickest.

Depth alone is no longer enough.

How the 2027 programme is built

We restructured the whole of our 2027 CPD programme around the T. Not as a marketing frame, but as the actual architecture.

Technical Depth is the vertical stroke. Auditing and accounting refreshers, tax updates, monthly tax briefings, company and employment law, firmwide AML, ethical considerations, and specialist work areas from charities to cryptocurrency. Over 100 modules.

Power Skills is one half of the horizontal, aimed at the individual. Four strands: People and Influence, Professional Edge, Self-Mastery, and Tech and AI.

Running the Practice is the other half, aimed at the firm leaders. Compliance, Leading AI Adoption, Marketing and Growth, and Team, Structure and Succession.

Judgement sits where they meet. It is the skill AI augments but cannot replace, and it is the reason the two strokes have to be developed together rather than in sequence.

It applies at every level

Trainees. The Year 1 Trainee Modules are deliberately split across the T from day one. Accounts, Audit and Tax build the vertical. The Skills pathway builds the horizontal, starting with AI at Work: The Rules Before the Tools and Starting Strong: Building Confidence and Managing Pressure. A trainee should not have to reach manager grade before anyone mentions judgement.

The practical compliance series. Short, on-demand, tested modules on AML, GDPR, PCRT, professional ethics, cyber security and more. Most run under 30 minutes and every one ends in a quiz. This is the point where the vertical and horizontal genuinely fuse: knowing the rule is technical, being able to demonstrate firm-wide compliance obligations have been met is a separate angle for firm leaders.

Working accountants at any grade. Take the AI workflow sessions. Accounts Preparation Workflows Reimagined for AI, Audit Workflows Reimagined for AI, Tax Compliance Workflows Reimagined for AI. Each is technical and each is about breadth, because the question they answer is not "what is the rule" but “what tools would best take this process from start to finish” and "where does the human stay in this process".

What developing both strokes looks like in practice

Take a tax senior with four years' experience.

Vertical: Finance Act 2027 Parts 1 and 2, Corporation Tax Update, Capital Taxes Hot Topics. Straightforward, and they would probably book those anyway.

Horizontal: Glass Box versus Black Box AI: Verifying Output, so they can challenge an AI-generated position rather than pass it on. Judgement under Pressure: Practical Case Studies. The Trusted Adviser: Moving Beyond Compliance, so a technical answer becomes a client conversation.

That is roughly the same number of CPD hours. It produces a materially different professional.

The auto-plan tool in our CPD platform builds exactly this kind of plan around a role and a level in a couple of clicks, and practice coordinators can push a plan out across a whole team with the training booked automatically.

Where to start

Do not restructure everything at once. Pick one team.

Ask a simple question of each person: where is their T thin? Almost everyone in a UK accountancy firm has a deeper vertical than horizontal. That is how the profession trained us. The question is whether that is still the right shape for the work you will be selling in 2027.

Depth keeps you compliant. Breadth is where the value now sits.

Explore the 2027 programme and book your training

Not sure where your firm is thin? Download the T-Skills Audit, a one-page tool for mapping depth and breadth across a team. Ten minutes, no jargon.