Accountants come in various shapes and sizes. If you want to become one, ask yourself where you want to work and what kind of accountant you’d like to be. Within financial services, investment banks hire accountants, as do retail banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, insurance companies and fund managers. Companies in all other sectors also need accountants to help them tot up profits and losses. Alternatively, you could work for an accountancy firm providing independent audit services to other companies. The best known are the Big Four – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Roles and career paths

There are several options open to you in an investment bank.

Product control

Keep an eye on the profits and losses made on products bought and sold on the trading floor.

Financial control

Analyse the bank’s overall performance and produce regular reports.

Internal audit

Responsible for checking that financial systems and controls within the organisation are being complied with.

Regulatory

Ensure the bank reports its financial activity according to the legal rules of the countries it trades in.

Treasury

Structure the bank’s financial affairs so that sufficient cash is available to meet its liabilities. By comparison, if you start as a graduate trainee in a Big Four accountancy firm, your career will be more limited; about half end up in audit and assurance departments, where they handle the accounts of publicly traded companies and independently validate that a company’s accounts are correct. Big Four firms also conduct advisory work, which can include corporate finance, reorganisation services (offering advice on everything from restructuring or insolvency to simply improving a firm’s performance), or forensic accounting (investigating improper practices). They also run consulting arms offering advice on the business case for everything from technology to outsourcing. There are other accountancy opportunities in industry and commerce for financial and management accountants.

Pay and bonuses

Accountants earn more in financial services than in any other sector. Basic salaries are higher and there’s the potential to earn lucrative bonuses. An internal auditor with more than five years’ experience working in banking and financial services in the UK can expect $113k-130k, according to Robert Walters, or $85k-135k in New York. By comparison, an internal auditor in a large firm in industry or commerce earns $80k-113k.

Skills sought

Most large accountancy firms will demand a finance-related degree but the first few years in the job are spent undertaking an accountancy qualification. Increasingly, though, the Big Four firms are open to applications from non-finance related fields, and some even have schemes set up for school leavers.

If you train as an accountant in London, most firms will expect you to take the exams run by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), while banks and Big Four accountancy firms tend to favour qualified associates of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ACA). This qualification is internationally recognised, but different countries also offer their own options.

In France, there is the DCG (Diplôme de Comptabilité et Gestion), equivalent to a three-year degree, and the DSCG (Diplôme Supérieur de Comptabilité et Gestion), equivalent to a Master’s.

In Germany, accountants qualify through vocational training with an employer for two or three years or through university studies, which usually take six years.

In the US, the Certified Public Accountants (CPA) qualification is key but there is also the option of Certified Internal Auditors (CIA), Certified Management Accountants (CMA), and Accredited Business Accountants (ABAs) qualifications.

“For those looking to enter our audit or tax practice, one key attribute is a degree in accounting,” says Holly Paul, US recruiting leader at PwC. “Beyond that, we look for well-rounded individuals, especially those that excel academically and show strong leadership skills. We also welcome those with strong oral and written communication skills, which we see as critical.” Accountancy firms don’t always expect you to have all the technical skills. They look for raw talent.

“We hire people who are able to work across functions and across a variety of clients, whether they are auditors, accountants or consultants in our advisory practice,” says Stephen Carpenter, managing partner of people performance and culture and senior tax partner at KPMG Australia, the head office for the Asia-Pacific region. “Therefore, we need four transferable skills: they must be confident communicators with a healthy appetite for learning in a fast-paced environment; they must be able to problem-solve and contribute to successful business outcomes; they must demonstrate the ability to work effectively in a team; and they must be able to lead others when the occasion arises.”

Before all this, however, you need to get your foot in the door. Good academic results are obviously beneficial but accountancy firms expect more.

“When we look to recruit accounting specialists into banking at graduate level, being qualified is important,” says Gregg Carnaffan, head of graduate recruitment & development at HSBC. “The things that set a great candidate apart, however, are the wider experiences and skills they bring to the table. We have no shortage of applications from well qualified candidates but voluntary work, supporting clubs and societies and general work experience all provide really great opportunities to demonstrate the competencies employers like us are looking for.”