Digital Financial Audit Apprentice Review

I am an IT Auditor at the National Audit Office. We provide assurance over IT systems of clients, helping to improve efficiency and protect against fraud. At the highest level we are attempting to confirm the accuracy of the clients' financial statements by reducing the risk of financial misstatement from the IT side of their businesses.

Yes I've learnt a lot about how IT infrastructure works, and how organisations use IT systems throughout their business. Also how IT systems interact with each other, and how security is implemented to protect these interactions and systems. Identity and access management is a large part of the work too, and how these are managed in the increasingly sensitive threat environment. In the future I will learn a lot more about software development, IT consulting, and cybersecurity.

I am really enjoying my programme. The team are very welcoming, the office is a great standard, and the work is varied, interesting, and feels important to the national interest. I was a bit swamped at the beginning due to the steep learning curve, but everyone was and remains very supportive. I'm looking forward to being able to contribute more in future in complex IT audits.

BPP have been quite vague about the degree element of the programme. I am still waiting for clarity from them, which we will hopefully get during an upcoming session that they have organised.

Lots of support is given by my employer. The only bad thing is the enforced dates for re-sits of exams. There's no valid reason for this I feel, and some flexibility should be given to the employee to book their re-sits themselves, within reason. If you've just failed an exam, having a resit potentially two days later is not a sensible idea, as you don't really have enough time to review and fix the areas you are weak in.

BPP are fine, most of the content is just related to working through an online pathway. There's plenty of videos and question practice available for those that want it. I will have to see in future how good the support is during the next few years of my course as topics get much more complicated.

I learn more on the job than I do from my qualification, but it is a good foundation and helps to fill in some of the gaps that I don't get to experience at work. In general though, most of the skills I need are provided for via training courses at work, and not from the qualification that I am pursuing.

I attend quite a lot of events with external and internal speakers which are really varied and interesting, but I don't get involved in sport or anything outside of work hours, mainly because it is during the evenings on weekdays. I'd be happier to do something at the weekends but there is very limited amounts of these activities available.

Yes

Great work life balance, everyone is highly qualified and friendly, varied interesting and impactful work and you can generally move teams and experience working in lots of different areas with different clients. Nice office in an easy to get to location, friendly approachable management, generally supportive HR for exams. Pay can also get quite high if you stay long enough, particularly for the civil service, and of course the civil service pension itself is very generous.

Always be prepared to speak about topics that you are interested in beyond just accountancy, and can speak passionately about no matter it is. Be sure to really understand what the NAO does, and make sure you can speak at length about examples of their work to demonstrate your interest in and understanding of what you are applying for.