Accounting

If you’re innovative, logical and confident, these are skills that could serve you well in a business career. As the BBC’s Young Apprentice, showed, you’re never too young to start developing your business acumen. If you’re looking for a career that challenges your numerical skills and business know-how, perhaps it’s time to consider accounting.

Studying Accountancy
Accountancy is a combination of skills, training and financial knowledge, and is another popular subject, with over 23,000 students enrolled on undergraduate accountancy courses in 2008/09 (HESA). Degrees concentrate on the disciplines that form the essential base of an accountant’s skills: economics, statistics and financial law. As accountancy deals with processing information and giving detailed advice to clients, successful accountants will need to be able to think logically and explain complex information in simple terms.

Career Path

Chartered Accountant
Chartered accountants are responsible for preparing or reporting on financial statements for presentation to the public. They act as consultants on financial matters, taxation, accounting and computer systems, estate planning and management reporting and procedures. Chartered accountants work in public practice firms, providing a wide range of financial management services to fee-paying clients, and in commerce/industry and the public sector.

Entry is open to graduates of all disciplines and, while a large number have business-related degrees, other subjects are represented, including science, maths and social sciences.

Salary guide
Average starting salaries for accountants range from around £20,000-£24,000, but can be nearer £30,000 in a large firm in London. Qualified accountants can earn six-figure salaries, with partners of large City firms sometimes receiving packages worth over £1 million. See The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), www.acca.org.uk.