Get a head start with our accredited Accounting and Finance degree
Employability is built into our curriculum and on our Accounting and Finance BSc, one of the key ways we enhance our students’ employability is our accreditation with five professional examining bodies. This gives you a flying start to your career as it gives you the option of exemption from your professional examinations.
Professional bodies set the standards they expect their members to have, so we’ve made sure these standards are built into our curriculum.
So, if you were thinking of having a career as a professional accountant (either working for an accounting practice such as the ‘Big 4’ or working for a company such as Sony as an internal accountant), it’s likely that you would want to join one of the professional accounting bodies and work your way up to full membership.
Vacancies for accounting jobs often ask for applicants to be ‘fully qualified’ or ‘part-qualified’. This is where the candidate is either working towards or has completed their accountancy qualification with a professional body in order to become a full member.
Which professional bodies are we accredited by?
Our Accounting and Finance degree is accredited by:
This means that the major accounting bodies will offer you exemptions from their professional exams and that the number of professional exams you have to take after graduation may be reduced.
Which exemptions will I be eligible for?
The number of exemptions you can achieve during your degree mainly depends on two things. Firstly, which professional body you decide to join.
Which professional body you choose may well depend on the type of accounting you want to do in your career or the type of job you enter after graduation. For example, an ICAEW member is more likely to work in financial accounting, whereas a CIMA member would be more likely to be involved in management accounting (though there certainly are exemptions to these norms).
Secondly, the optional modules you choose during your degree may affect your exemptions.
Whilst some professional bodies might offer you an exemption through just completing your degree regardless of which modules you choose, others offer exemptions only if you take specific modules in your option choices. For example, in order to get an exemption related to Audit and Assurance with most of the bodies, you would need to take MAN3098 (Auditing) in your final year of study.
All of the bodies show exactly what exemptions can be obtained and the conditions to earn them on their websites, so do look at their resources.
Follow your interests
Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Gavin Midgley, says: “Many of our students only decide on a specific career path towards the end of their studies so we always advise that they should choose modules based on their interests rather than how many exemptions [from professional exams] they can earn.”
Remember too that employers also look at your personal qualities rather than how many exemptions you have earned. Here at Surrey, we will work with you to shape your career path that maximises your skills set, qualities and ambitions.
Employability at Surrey
We take pride in helping our students prepare for successful futures and, in addition to accreditation, we offer:
- Professional Training placements
- careers fairs, professional speed-dating events, mock interviews, CV-writing or workshops through our Careers and Employability team
- visiting speakers from industry contact to expand your professional networks.
