Competition is fierce, reveals Baker Tilly

Richard King, office managing partner in Leeds and Saltaire, also said the competition in Yorkshire was "fairly fierce" despite the strong presence of the so-called Big Four – KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and Pricewaterhouse Coopers – saying Baker Tilly could compete well with them for the large majority of business.

He also said that economic prospects depended on what was in George Osborne's first Budget on Tuesday and said there could be a "short term flurry of activity" depending on the speed of expected changes, such as on capital gains tax.

Baker Tilly said its fee income for its Yorkshire practice reached 20m for the year to March 31, up from 18.1m for the previous 12 months.

Over the last year the firm has seen several changes, with Mr King replacing Kevin O'Connor, who became regional managing partner.

Steve Carter joined as a partner to head Baker Tilly's professional practices group across the north and it combined its Bradford and Keighley offices into a new site in Saltaire.

It said it saw "steady growth" across the business as it integrated Howarth Clark Whitehill (Yorkshire) after their 2008 merger.

Now it has 200 staff and 28 partners in the region.

Mr King added: "We have had a positive start to our new financial year. We have picked up a number of significant clients during the last month and there's certainly been an uplift in the amount of transactional work.

"This is benefiting not only our corporate finance team, but our audit and tax departments.

"Times do however remain challenging and like all businesses we need to manage ourselves very closely to ensure that we remain successful."

Andrew Mould, managing partner of the Hull office, said: "In Hull we have also had a number of new client opportunities to start the year on the back of our service offering and substantial local tax practice.

"We are now recruiting again in our audit practice which is a first sign of a welcome recovery."