Association of Accounting Technicians

And I've been talking a lot about university versus apprenticeships.

And I like to sort of think about apprenticeships versus professional accountancy qualifications really in this theme, because in our industry, it's very much about do you go straight into your AAT from college or something? Or do you maybe go to university and then go and do your accounting qualifications.

I think that it's all about the person.

Personally, I didn't do AAT at my first job.

I went straight into ACCA and that was a choice that was kind of made for me by the more senior people in the business who felt like, you know, this would be the right route for you.

So it's very difficult when you don't have awareness of what those jobs are.

And I think that qualifications really do matter.

I'm an ACCA accountant.

And there certainly weren't that many jobs around whereby people wanted an apprentice in the finance department.

So when I left school at 17 with zero plan of how I was going to create a career, I was fortunate enough, I guess, that my father was an accountant, so understood that there was the AAT route into the workplace.

And And then I guess just sheer naive or almost just, I guess, I didn't really understand the workplace in its entirety.

So I was quite happy to sort of beat down the doors and get my foot through the door just to get those opportunities.

I did AAT.

I did part of that in like a night school situation.

Then I did day release.

And then after AAT, I went on and did a CCA.