I wondered last week whether the accountancy bubble was about to burst and a couple of posters suggested I was being too cautious. It's not the first time I've been accused of that but on this one I'll hedge my best for a little while longer.

Yes, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a slowdown is underway (comments from PwC chairman Kieran Poynter, less-good-than-previously financials from a big recruiter etc.) but I struggle to see evidence that a crash is on the cards.

Deloitte's chief executive John Connolly says: ' "Calling" the market in the year ahead is challenging. The first quarter of the financial year saw continued strong growth in line with the previous year but the outlook remains uncertain.' He sees M&A as a great opportunity. Ernst & Young is thought to be more aggressive and while new KPMG head honcho John Griffith Jones is a little more cautious, his firm has posted the biggest gains in the last 12 months and so is bound to see slower acceleration going forward.

Below that top tier it's hard to imagine a more confident business person these days than Jeremy Newman of Stoy Hayward. And Grant Thornton continues to be perky too.

Of course they would say that. No chief exec wants to sound less bullish than a competitor and, with no listing authority to call them to account, there is little need for the big players to curb their enthusiasm. Neither do they want to talk the market into recession, always a very real danger.

But if Poynter is, forgive me, pointing to slower growth - albeit of the high single digit variety - that's not the end of the world. A few years ago Clive Thompson was known as Mr 20% for consistently delivering on the services group's annual revenue target. It didn't last and neither did his tenure as chairman.

Surely there is a normal level of growth we can expect from accountancy firms which doesn't require us to call a recession?