Flying Start Degree Programme - Intern/Trainee - London Review

My role as a Flying Start Trainee in audit involved performing ground level tasks within the audit procedure. This would include things like communicating with the client via email or PwC communication systems to request evidence for various assertions made. I would then have to document this evidence and reconcile to the assertion - ensuring to keep a back & forth with the client until a reconciliation was achieved, or marking down a weakness in client controls in case reconciliation was not achieved. I would further support my teams with any assistive tasks to complete.

Audit by nature is a highly specific field of work, so I have definitely developed various skills with regards to audit procedures. On a general scale, having worked with Excel daily for the last 3 months means my spreadsheet editing skills have certainly been honed! Furthermore, I have developed from scratch the ability to hold interactions directly with clients - daunting at first but it eventually became something I was more comfortable about!

Being on placement itself is highly enjoyable. The work environment is excellent, as is the office location. Work arrangements are highly flexible and the people are all very enjoyable to work with. However, given we are only exposed to 'busy season', the work itself is very intense throughout and this is felt more so at the start - it can take some time to settle in. This then also makes the transitions from university to work and back to university rather difficult - it's the equivalent of graduating three times over! Moreover, given placement comes between teaching months and exams, the gap between having studied the content and being examined on it is quite long which makes things more difficult. Overall, it makes for a very draining but rewarding year. The university course, however, is less satisfactory with content not being massively valuable (less than 20-30% is actually used on placement).

The organisation of the programme is very strong. There are great support networks and fantastic guidelines in place. However, the structure is quite awkward given placement comes between teaching months at university and exams. It means after placement in April, you are revising content you studied in September for exams in May. While you do have around 4-5 weeks for revision, it's less than ideal.

PwC is highly supportive throughout our time on placement. The sheer extent of the support network means most of it doesn't even need to be used! I relied heavily on my buddy and career coach who I would interact with on a daily basis and who would provide valuable support and coaching. We further had two wellbeing calls with a member of the Flying Start team which I'm sure would have been valuable for those having any difficulties.

An adequate amount of support. Lectures at university are quite mediocre (possibly worse), and revision content provided is satisfactory. Quality of the teaching and learning support is not great, but it gets the job done. This is probably the weakest element of the programme as a whole - the university period.

I didn't feel there was huge overlap between what I have been studying as part of the degree and the work I have been doing on placement yet. I felt the training PwC provide as a precursor to placement was more than sufficient to prepare me for the role.

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved - however, these do seem to be toned down somewhat during busy season given the fact that people are already working long hours. I didn't get involved in anything personally given I wanted to balance family time with work time, and work time was already long enough as it was. But the opportunities were certainly given.

Yes

Great insight & development alongside your studies. Get paid well enough to pay for your tuition fees for the year you work without needing a loan too so that's a bonus. And it's super valuable to graduate with 12 months aggregate work experience under your belt and many many well-developed professional skills.

Be aware it's a tough course given the constant transitioning, and if you don't love accounting, the university periods are extremely boring. But the work is rewarding and so I would still choose something like this over an ordinary university degree any day. Work hard and be genuine throughout your application process!