Accounting
19 year-old working with well- known companies is exciting. Although I’m a full-time BDO employee, I’m also studying for the ACA qualification, so I can become a qualified accountant. There are three levels – certificate, professional and advanced – with multiple sets of exams for each level. The firm uses BPP as one of its training providers, so in the build-up to each exam we go to their college, with trainees from other firms, and they deliver all the training and content in blocks. The firm then gives us study leave to prepare for the exams. It’s a lot of hard work and you do have to be disciplined to do well in the exams. You can’t just look at the materials the night before and expect to pass. You need to do little and often throughout your apprenticeship, a few questions a day, an hour or two in the evening. Just swapping an hour on social media for some revision, rather than scrolling through Tik Tok, can make all the difference. I’m now in the fourth year of my apprenticeship and if all goes well, I’ll complete the last of my exams in July 2025 and I’ll be an ACA chartered accountant. It’s a level 7 qualification, so I’ll have the equivalent of a master’s degree to my name. I’ll definitely be staying with BDO and would like to move internally into the mergers and acquisitions team. I knew when my apprenticeship started that I wanted to go into finance, but I couldn’t be sure what that looked like. It sounds a bit cheesy, but within the first month of being at BDO, I fell in love with audits and accountancy, and quickly realised it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. ”
I stumbled across degree apprenticeships and started doing lots of online research. All the top professional services firms run school-leaver degree apprenticeship programmes in accountancy. BDO was always a front-runner for me because of the interesting work they do with well-known brands, but they also have a really attractive culture and work-life balance.
Degree Apprentice
I applied and found the selection process pretty
straightforward. Firms recognise that at 17 or 18 years old, you’re not going to understand much about accountancy or audit, or have loads of interview experience. But you do need to be able to explain why you’re interested in finance and why you want to work for the firm. BDO offered me the degree apprenticeship and I started work as an audit trainee in their Southampton office in September 2021, in the business assurance team. Being an auditor is like being a financial detective. In the UK, companies of a certain size are subject to an audit each year. As auditors, we ensure the figures that the company reports to their shareholders, to the public, to investors and to their bank are true and fair – and give an accurate reflection of the company. My job could be to look at a company’s income and perform different tests to make sure the revenue actually is what they’re reporting. There’s often a misconception that an auditor or accountant will just sit in front of spreadsheets, glued to their chair all day, but it’s far from that. I’m often on-site at the businesses we work with, it’s an important part of how we conduct an audit. To be an 18 or
Ben Atiako-Hall Accounting Professional Degree Apprentice BDO
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I’ve played football all my life and when I was at
school I always wanted to be a professional footballer. I played at AFC Bournemouth in their Youth Academy and was given the chance to play for Bromley Football Club. During my time there, the impact of the pandemic made me want to explore other opportunities outside of football, so I started thinking about what to do instead. I’ve always liked finance and watched Dragon’s Den on TV when I was younger. I looked into going to university to do something like an economics degree. I’d studied economics, history and PE for A-level, as well as a BTEC Level 3 diploma. I wasn’t sure about university though, because it meant waiting three or four years before I’d start work. I knew I wanted to get stuck into the working world and be involved in real-life businesses. And the student debts were a deal-breaker too.
Degree Apprenticeships 31
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