Why choose an Audit Graduate Scheme?
Audit offers a varied and exciting career. You will have the opportunity to work across a range of sectors, conducting independent checks on companies’ financial situations and helping to advise on ways for them to operate more profitably. It’s a job in which you will always be learning about different types of businesses and developing your business skills. Audit also provides a stable and lucrative career path with fast progression and rewarding work.
We pride ourselves on learning and development for our trainees and have lots of structures in place to support you on your journey with us, for example trainee away days, a dedicated training manager and buddy as well as study leave to name just a few.
Training and development does not stop when you qualify and finish your audit graduate programme – we are committed to continually developing our staff. Regardless of whether you’re a trainee or a director using our ‘People Passport’ you are guaranteed a great investment in your future!
What’s in it for you?
- Full sponsorship of the ACA qualification (Level 7 Apprenticeship, equivalent to a Master’s degree)
- Great social life at the firm with your peers with activities such as inter-office rounders, football, book club and more!
- Career progression where we listen to what you want and how we can support you to achieve it
- A permanent contract of employment
- Development opportunities to experience working in different teams
- Competitive salary with increases every six months until you qualify
- Work-life balance with our flexi-time working policy
- 25 days’ holiday with the opportunity to buy and sell holiday each year
- Full benefits package including health cash plan, support from a dedicated training manager and more
What will I be doing?
Our audit graduate scheme is designed to support your learning and development. You will work as part of the audit team while studying for the ACA qualification. This can take you out of the office for weeks at a time which is a really nice bridge between studying for your degree and entering the world of work. The variety of clients we work with provides you with a well-rounded experience, and the structure of our teams allows you the opportunity to gain knowledge from, and exposure to, senior managers, directors and partners throughout your training and beyond.
Structure of your Audit Graduate Programme
Year 1 – You will have the opportunity to bring your problem-solving skills from higher education to our client’s challenges, starting with analysing bank payments and receipts, preparing control accounts, calculating prepayments and accruals, and updating fixed asset registers for additions and disposals, also calculating depreciation, and drafting basic financial statements as well as starting to apply basic principles of auditing working as part of a larger team, amongst other duties. During this time you will also build on your degree experience to develop the ability to identify differences or issues from information provided by clients and start to suggest solutions.
Year 2 – You will build on your experience gained from your first year of our audit graduate scheme, and learn new skills such as preparing more complex statutory accounts with accurate disclosures as required by company law, undertake small simple audits on your own, complete more complex audit testing and develop your problem solving and business skills. You will also have the opportunity to assist more junior trainees with queries and be a buddy to those just starting out.
Years 3 – Having built a good base level of knowledge from your first 2 years of our audit graduate programme, you will start to undertake audits as lead, taking responsibility for the whole job. You will be able to undertake auditing of complex areas like long-term contracts, intangible assets, and financial instruments. You will develop the ability to review the work of junior staff and ensure files are presented to a manager in a complete state, as well as drafting review points for the leading partner. You will also be able to prepare consolidated statutory financial statements.
At the end of your third year, you should complete your professional qualification and start to prepare for a role as an Assistant Manager.
Application process for the Audit Graduate Programme
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Stage 1:
Online application -
Stage 2:
Telephone interviews -
Stage 3:
Online assessments -
Stage 4:
Assessment day
Stage 1: Online application
Take a look below to find our vacancies for each office which open from autumn to start the following year. You will need to submit your CV and answer 3 questions:
1. What excites you about our audit graduate scheme? We suggest you do some research around the ACA qualification, look at our current trainee testimonials, research what a career in audit might look like, and show awareness of our values and culture in your answers. This will also help you decide if this is the right career path for you.
2. What are your strengths and why? We encourage you to think about the skills needed in an audit career and tailor your answers to these. We’re not looking for specific A-level subjects or degrees and we’re keen to hear about your strengths from lots of different backgrounds!
3. Tell us something interesting about you? There’s no right answer here, it’s really just for us to learn about you more as a person.
Stage 2: Telephone interview
If your online application is successful, you will be invited to a short telephone interview with a member of the HR team to discuss your motivation and experiences further.
Stage 3: Online assessments
If you are successful at the telephone interview, you will be invited to complete a couple of online assessments. They will involve verbal and numerical tests and you will receive all the instructions via email.
Stage 4: Assessment day
If you are successful in the online assessments, you will be invited to a group assessment day, either online or in-person.
Hopefully you will be successful at the assessment day! You will be then invited to your new home office before you start the audit graduate scheme, to meet your team.
We wish you the best of luck!
St Albans