Digital Apprentice - Audit and Analytics Review

As a Digital Apprentice in the Audit service my role is split in to 2. For the first 6 months of the year, I am part of the Audit Data Analytics Team which specialise in Big Data and Data Manipulation and cleansing. Day-to-day responsibilities in these team include, extracting client data, cleansing the data and manipulating it in to a format that can be easily analysed & finally creating Analysers tailored to Audit Teams needs in order for them to conduct testing on our clients accounts. For the second 6 months, I work in audit as an accountant; in this team I use the Analysers i was creating in the Analytics team and also guide and advise other colleagues on how to best use the analysers.

I worked as an accountant for 3 years prior to joining EY and think that during the 18 months I have been with the company, I have learned more about accounting than I did the 3 years! As I am exposed to rotations in to the analytics team, I have also had the opportunity to develop new analytics skills including coding, using data cleansing programs such as Alteryx and also data visualisation software such as Spotfire.

I enjoy my programme a huge amount, the 6 months rotations keep things exciting as it allows you to expose yourself to a lot of different types of work - the teams I work in are also extremely supportive and are always accommodating to my 1 day off a week for study leave.

Our programme is structured very well, we are told in advance when our modules are due to take place as well as when our exams are and when are coursework is due. Sometimes there is miscommunication between the company and the college which causes confusion when meeting with my College Skills Coach as he sometimes has a different understanding on what my time on the scheme should entail.

I receive huge amounts of support from my employer. All Digital Apprentices get a day off a week during term times to study as well as days off for college workshops. There is also a lot of support from the analytics team as a lot of the team members have studied similar courses and have a lot of knowledge they can share.

Support from the training provider is helpful but not always accessible. We have a Skills Coach who is normally very helpful but sometimes the miscommunication between them and the company causes confusion. I have also found it difficult to contact the training provider tutors and staff who mark our assignments for feedback which makes it difficult to try and improve on my work.

The training provided has some relevance to the work I do in the Data Analytics team and there are a lot of transferable skills that I can apply to the day-to-day jobs I conduct whilst in this team. The course hasn't necessarily linked closely with the audit of my role as of yet however there are a couple of modules that I will be studying this year that could help me apply knowledge across both teams I work in.

EY has an abundance of extra activities and social events which make it very easy to network and build close relationships with the team. They also pay for a lot of the events out of their own budget which is a great help when you are on an apprentice wage.

Yes

EY are extremely supportive and offer huge amounts of opportunities with great variety. I think it would be difficult to find a company of the same magnitude with the genuine help and care that EY provide to their apprentices - there is a lot of scaremongering around the 'Big 4' and them terminating your contract if you do not perform well first time, however this is not the case at all and EY really do want to help you help them!

Enjoy the experiences and trust in the scheme! There may be times where you think that the work isn't exactly what you want to be doing, but when you start putting together all the work from all the teams you have worked with the bigger picture becomes a lot clearer! Take advantage of all the opportunities that EY offer you as it's a great way to figure what you want and don't want to do after the scheme has finished!