Today is

By: Uchenna Ani-okoye

A Career as an Accountant

The vast majority of people who study to become an accountant end up working as a charted accountant or they decide to work for themselves with their main activities involving advising their clients on a number of aspects of their financial standing, such as offering tax advice, bookkeeping, along with solution to planning their taxes. This would be slightly different from the duties of an in-house accountant, as he or she would be expected to manage the finances of the company.

Working as an accountant is a relatively steady career with a good pay and good career path opportunities for those who are interested in advancing to consultancy positions or management level.

As with the vast majority of careers out there, there are a number of career paths and qualifications for those who are interested in becoming an accountant. The main two paths are:

Undertaking a degree programme in accountancy and mathematics
Studying while you are working, either through an Association of Account
Technicians course or one with the Institute of Chartered Accountants

Doing a degree in accountancy has a number of benefits over doing a degree in another area in order to become an accountant, these are:

Ones exemption from stage professional exams
A fast track qualification, graduating a year before those doing a different degree would

There are a number of graduate training contracts that a graduate can join, these are offered by large and medium accounting firms and have three years duration on them they involve professional examinations and hands on experience. This route would require the student to balance their studies with their full time job, this can be a very depending task for most people to do by depending on the location of the firm, and you could warrant a salary within the range of 22k for an accountant trainee.