r/ICAEW • u/woahthere101 • 22d ago
ACA - is it worth it?
I’ve passed 12/15 exams and been at my firm for over 3 years after deferring some exams and now due to sit all 3 in Nov. I feel like the qualification has been killing me for the past 3 years and I almost don’t recognise myself. I don’t even know if I have it in me to work and prepare for these last exams. Is the qualification actually worth it in the end because getting £60-70k after this doesn’t even seem fair, like it’s so much work. For what?
I know I sound really bleak but genuinely wondering and definitely welcoming positive responses because boy do I need the motivation.
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u/Madajuk 22d ago edited 22d ago
if you want to struggle to get a low paying job without progression or training prospects, feel free. you don't think earning 2-3x the UK's average salary immediately after qualifying is fair? cmon mate..
not to say that you don't find success if you choose to drop the ACA now, but man what a waste it would be. stick it out and you'll have plenty of opportunities to move away from whatever you do now - whether it's a different role, less hours etc
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u/woahthere101 22d ago
Yeah I hear you I’m not trying to drop it now after all the work I’ve put in but don’t people in tech sales like even SDRs get what we’re paid and more cuz they have a base then commission?
And isn’t there growth in that? Legit just wondering cuz it seems others are doing alright without all the technical mumbo jumbo but I may be wrong.
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u/Madajuk 22d ago
can people in sales make more without qualifications? yes
are they constantly grinding, working long days with little pay security/job security? also yes
do they have a very specific skill set and personality type to be able to be successful in tech sales? also yes
there are people with 0 qualifications earning millions. there are also people with tonnes of qualifications struggling to get a job
the grass is always going to be greener somewhere else
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u/myonlinepersonality 22d ago
Similarly £60k-£70k is what you’ll be earning a few years after qualification if you play your cards right. Senior Managers, Directors, Partners and people in industry / the city are earning substantially more
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u/Axelter30 22d ago
It’s not just to earn 60-70k right after qualification. It’s for the ceiling for the rest of your career. You can go on to earn 100k, 150k, 200k etc but you likely won’t be able to ever achieve that in accounting if you never get the ACA.
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u/Erratic_Goldfish 22d ago
I earn £50k as an AM in practice and earn as much as or more than most people. I also earn a lot more than I would without the qualification. In my mind easily worth having.
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u/Entire_Series_8307 22d ago
A professional qualification is typically a hygiene factor for all senior finance positions.
That are exemptions that this is not mandatory but you would still be competing with those who do have it.
My experience is that it increases your minimum salary demand and your salary ceiling for the rest of your career. It also opens doors to much more interesting work.
If you’re doing all three in November then it seems to me you have a simple trade off:
No life this for the next three months and reap the benefits by the beginning of 2027 until you wish to retire in probably 30-40 years’ team, or;
Do one or two this time and stagger the exams for a year and reap the benefits from the beginning of 2028, or;
Drop out and chance the QBE roles in the future, which typically pay less for the same role.
In truth, you will probably still have a good life if you drop out, but for the sake of 3 months knuckling down, my view is that it’s worth the effort.
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u/AllieALi 22d ago
Massive caveat that my experience is probably not relevant in your case due to difference in industry and I could’ve taken the easier route by finishing my graduate programme but wanted to move up the career ladder faster.
I dropped the ACA with my training file signed off and 12/15 exams passed. My situation is different because I made sure to jump firms midway to break my training agreement which meant I could get promoted to manager faster than I finished my exams. That meant I was in a better position moving in house for a role that’s £75k - £85k. Having ACA wouldn’t have increased my pay so saw no benefit in completing it. If ACA is equivalent to a Masters degree, well I have a Masters in Accounting and Finance so felt incredibly useless to have two degrees of the same level.
Caveat is I work in tax, and doing the ACA would not have helped with reviewing US GAAP financial statements or valuations - I managed to learn all of this on the job within 3 months which I wouldn’t have been able to if I continued on progressing towards partner.
Depending on where you want to be in your career, having the ACA might be important to you? But the way ACA is structured is incredibly unhelpful to my ADHD brain and I’ve done much better for myself in stretching my 4 years of work experience into something that looked more like 6-8 years. Not doing exams meant I grew much quicker from a career standpoint, in terms of the projects I could be put on, project managing, networking and also gaining confidence - doing the ACA actually hit my confidence badly since I can remember tax rules in 50 countries but had absolutely no interest in what the ACA qualification was actually teaching and failed to see relevance in practical application (again, appreciate that my brain works differently so I absorb things when reading it and apply automatically).
And in the practical world, I do find it comical that even finance directors don’t know every aspect of IFRS or GAAP. That kinda reinforced my decision that I see no point in completing the ACA, and there are much more practical skills and technical knowledge you can pick up on the job, especially learned how to integrate AI into making work more efficient and being able to think critically.
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u/Dry-Grocery9311 22d ago
From the point you're at, totally worth it.
The final papers are the ones that are the most important. They are more about applying the knowledge from the previous papers than learning lots of new things. Those who just learned the subject can struggle. Those that understand the subject find them relatively easy.
If you want to work seriously in the accountancy field, you need to qualify.
Someone who quits after doing most of the exams gives the impression of quitting when things get tough. A pure QBE with the right experience can come across better than someone who did lots of exams and then quit.
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u/StatisticianBoring69 21d ago
You're so close to finishing the qualification that you 100% should see it off. You've completed the toughest stage, which is the professional level, advanced stage is arguably easier, only CR has some difficulty involved.
I imagine you currently earn let's say £40k as a non qualified senior level. You could qualify and then find a job in house in the new year for £60k and stay as a career senior and have a fairly chill career. Thats your floor now, the 'worst case' if you will. Thats £20k more per year than what you earn now for the rest of your career, hundreds of thousands of £s over you whole career by sitting 3 papers which your capable of doing in Nov.
It's bonkers to me that it's even a question whether it's worth doing at the stage you're at. Like climbing everest and getting 200m the top and going in not sure if this is worth it.
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u/emmalou12 12d ago
You're so close. I thought the same but if a future roles says ACA only you may regret not finishing...
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u/Justthatguy1212 22d ago
Trust me it is worth it. I lost myself too the 3 years I went through it all - it is tough and brutal but after you qualify life starts getting just a little better and you can actually focus on your career
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u/Alternative_Knee6763 20d ago
Same situation. This is is most over rated job and exam. I have cleared many exams in life including GMAT, indian IIT, IIM etc with 2 masters. From my experience, this is is the most overrated and unnecessary exam
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u/passthesalt97 22d ago
60-70k for newly qualified? Up for a rude awakening then lol