apprentice accountant Review

I was firstly in an audit rotation in national markets so I spent most of my time out on client site, meeting and speaking with clients, performing testing work for the audit, using excel and various other pieces of software. I travelled around the country a lot and work with a large variety of companies. I am now in the pensions actuarial team which is completely different, I complete a lot more mathsy type work, work on professional reports and business development work. I have learnt a lot of new excel skills here.

Yes I have learnt absolutely loads of new skills. I am now very competent on excel as have learnt a lot about general accounting, how many companies work, how financial statements work and how to interpret them. I have also learnt a lot about the corporate world in general. I am now learning a lot about pensions and the systems used by KPMG to improve efficiency in their work.

I enjoy the program, I am usually busy although sometime feel under-utilised and that, especially in audit, the resourcing Of people at different skill levels is poor as I will sometimes have very little to do and a person a grade above me will be working 10+ hours a day which seems silly from both points of view. I enjoy being with a group of people the same age as me. However, in the pensions team I feel I am utilised a lot better and am given a large variety of work to do and really feel part of a team.

Pretty well structured in terms of exams and training. We get time off for studying and time to complete training. There is also the option to fast track so complete your qualifications earlier if you know which department you would like to specialise in which is good. I do, however, think the program is advertised badly as it is only really possible to do placements within tax and audit (pensions placements are rare) and you can only really specialise in these 2 areas too. It is also very hard to get a placement in an area that you really want.

Quite a bit, we have a specific apprenticeship manager who we can talk to and I receive support from people in my placement team. KPMG as a company are also very understanding of personal circumstances and we also receive a good amount of time off to be able to complete our studying. I don't feel that our PM in the apprenticeship team is that useful however as they never really understand our day-to-day jobs like someone from our department would. I also think it makes us more distant from the department we are in as we don't have a set manager with specific interest in us who actually understands our job and team.

As much as you would expect, we have a skills coach who we speak with regularly to see how we’re doing and gives us advice on how we can improve the way we work. We also can get in contact with tutors from college if we need support and the online resources available are really good

The qualification is especially valuable in audit and the qualifications we study are essential and highly regarded in the accounting profession. They are very helpful and will be invaluable further on in my career. There isn’t really a more perfect qualification to get whilst being in an accounting role

Lots and lots of social events and opportunities to volunteer but I wish there were more sport events especially for women such as a netball team. The volunteering opportunities are really good and I’ve already got involved with a few. We can also go back to schools to give talks to promote apprenticeships to others

Yes

It’s a really good way to get into such a good job and in the future you will have a lot of experience to talk about with it being a rotational program even if you don’t particularly enjoy the rotations. You learn a lot and get to meet a lot of new people.

Just to be confident, try hard in your A levels etc. Learn the values that KPMG have as a company and be able to show interest in the professional services and what we do as a company. Be able to have something interesting about you to talk about and also know the kind of areas you want to be in and be able to have the confidence to stand up for yourself and get in contact with teams in order to get the placements you want.