How I Became a Chartered Certified Accountant Without a Degree

Greeting Stacey Mcveighty Director Change Accountants wall 2

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If you’re wondering whether skipping university closes the door on a career like accountancy, it doesn’t. I didn’t go, and I still ended up chartered, running my own practice. Here’s how that actually happened, in case it’s useful to you.

The route I took

In 1999 I went straight from A-levels into a training contract with a local accountancy firm. I was employed from day one, doing real work for real clients, and I studied for ACCA alongside it.

I qualified in 2003, within four years. The qualification came from the studying and the exams, not from three years on a campus somewhere. I became a chartered certified accountant without a university degree, having worked the whole time.

Making partner at 27

In 2007, I made partner at a Yorkshire firm. I was 27, and at the time, the youngest woman in the county to do it.

I won’t pretend the exams were easy, because they weren’t. Studying for a professional qualification while working full time means evenings and weekends you’d rather have had back, and there were points I wondered whether it was worth it. It was. By the time people my age were a couple of years out of university and just starting to work out what they wanted to do, I already had four years of real client work behind me and a qualification most people take a decade longer to reach.

Why I started Change

I started Change in 2014 because I wanted to run the kind of practice I’d have wanted to be a client of. Building an apprenticeship route for people starting out is part of that same thinking. I got where I am by working and studying at the same time, with an employer willing to invest in me properly. I’ve tried to be that employer for others. Several of our team have trained with us straight from school. Tynam joined us as an apprentice from school and is now part of our management team; Josie started as an apprentice with us and is now in our senior accounts team.

That’s not a sentimental add-on to the business. It’s the same route, offered on purpose, to people who might otherwise assume university is the only way in. It isn’t. It wasn’t for me.

If you’re thinking about it

You don’t need a degree to become a chartered accountant. You need an employer who’ll fund your training and give you real work early, and you need to be willing to put the study hours in alongside it. That’s all it takes.

If that sounds like the route you want, have a look at our accountancy apprenticeship page, where you can see what the day-to-day looks like and register your interest for when we’re next hiring.

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