Engineering to Accountancy: Please need advice!!!

Hi,

I am in the process of moving from engineering into accountancy as to be honest its just not doing it for me in my current profession….I have realised this now and want out. Cutting a long story short I have secured an apprenticeship with a leading firm in industry. The wage involves a massive pay cut for me but I am prepared to take this as I am realist who knows I will have to serve my time to get my qualifications and reap the benefits in the future.

But I would like to know about pay rises that are likely to come my way in the coming years. As a trainee can one expect wage rises / bonuses? Also, with the passing of exams can one expect that the increasing experience / skill would be recognised by the employer in monetary terms? [I know people may say this depends on the individual and company involved but generalisations wrt industry would be helpful]. Also, on qualification, do wages still leap dramatically as they did in previous years or is it more of a gradual progression from starting as a trainee to qualification?

On a different matter, at the moment I am in a position where I have been offered one contract and have a good chance of being offered another. The first company has put me under pressure to sign – if I do what are the likely implications if I back out on the deal?

Thanks for any help, as these questions are quite important to me at the moment and any help would be much appreciated.

SOS

Hi SOS,

Are you a professional engineer with a degree? If so you might be able to do a shorter conversion course. I know of several engineers and scientists who have done this.

What aspect of accountancy are you interested in? The CIMA qualification has management accountancy as its emphasis. Every year hundreds of engineers qualify with CIMA.

If I have any more information I'll post it here.

ajapale

Irish Jobs have an accountant's salary survey [broken link removed].

Sluice

Hi,

ajapale, thanks very much for your help. I do indeed have a degree and am a professional engineer.

I forgot to mention in the first post but another reason I am asking these questions is I am starting to think in todays competitive climate you need to have as broad experience as possible, in effect as many strings to your bow as you can. Hopefully this might explain a bit more where i am coming from.

I have a few more questions for you:
When you talk of a conversion course that grants exemptions, would you mind being more specific?
I have looked into the CIMA exams and qualification and it sounded interesting to me. In your experience when engineers and scientists did this were they granted study leave by their company, were the exams paid for etc.... Again I know this is a very open question but I guess generalisations would be helpful in this instance.

sluice44, thanks very much for the information.....

I am starting to think in todays competitive climate you need to have as broad experience as possible, in effect as many strings to your bow as you can.

Click to expand...

ACCA do a diploma in finance for non-financial managers (or something similar. Maybe that might be more suitable. Takes about a year I think.

Aha, Firefox's tabs are useful.... Have a look [broken link removed] and [broken link removed]

Sluice

re engineering to accountancy

Just out of curiosity why are you leaving engineering. I have come across a few people over the last year who have left engineering and IT for accountancy, business even plumbing. Is it because of working hours,stress, lack of job security etc. Engineering is a very demanding profession, in some ways it may be becoming too demanding.

You also say that you need as many strings to your bow as you can. But is it not also true that there is a danger of becoming a jack of all trades but a master of none.

..

Does anyone have any specifics? It seems one has the choice...(i'm in the exact same position as the first post!) to go:
1. CIMA and stay in your same job and then start your 3 years practical experience.....no idea what salary you start on?
2. become like a grad again and do Chartered Accounting....the Prof 2 and 3 exams and 3.5 years i think.
3. become like a grad and do the Certified accounting, again exams and 3-4 years.

from what i can conclude, options 2 and 3 mean basically becomming like a grad again...and I presume a salary of in or around 20k, if lucky...maybe less.

Option 1 would seem to take longer but I wonder because you have many of the exams done yourself if you would start off on a higher salary when starting the 3 years of training needed. However, I presume that route would end up being fairly saucy when you have to pay for your exams, books etc. I know in my company, because I work in IT and am a Engineer they would nto offer me any support, as their first thougths would be why should we help fund someone who when they qualify with it, by deifnition will have to leave us...