AIBU to retrain as an accountant at 28 after setbacks?

I'm going to go against so many responses here and say go for it. I think a lot of people are over looking that you are already a graduate and have a lot of relevant skills. There is a lot of cross over & back & forth between the teaching & accountancy professions. You would not be alone in switching a few years after graduation.

There are 3 main accountancy qualifications (you can definitely move into the profession without doing AAT as you're a grad). Think about whether you are interested in working in industry (strategic, planning & controlling roles) or in practice (audit & tax roles). Then look for graduate entry roles in the size of organisation which interests you. In all 3 qualifications (CIMA, ACCA & ICAEW) you will have 3 levels of exams. They will get your brain working.

PM me if you want more info. Thousands of trainees start their professional exams each year. From what you've said there is no reason why you can't join them. Graduate roles tend to start in Sept, Jan or April so apply now. Many places for Sept are already full.

I retrained at the age of 43 @Lunalaraso it’s never too late!
For me that involved 4 years of evening classes to gain 2 GCSEs and 2 A levels and then I started training as an HCP (degree course) for 3 years as well as caring for my school age family so I would say anything is doable!
I don’t know anything about accountancy apart from doing a Bookkeeping course so I can’t advise you on that.
WRT the teacher training, I know someone in the same position as you, very intelligent with a first class degree, good at chess and he also failed his teacher training and it severely knocked his confidence.
He found it really hard to cope with that failure having breezed through exams all his life. I think the problem was he couldn’t get down to a very low level to explain the basics; his thinking was on too high a level to really comprehend how some secondary school kids think. He didn’t made it fun or design a teaching plan that would start from the very lowest level, unable to see that if they didn’t have the basics then they wouldn’t be able to understand his terminology!
It just wasn’t for him, in the same way that one might train to be a nurse or doctor and find ultimately you are just too squeamish!
I would suggest you consider career counselling to identify what you would be good at before you spend more time and money on training.
Can you apply for jobs in finance and admin as continuing in education is unlikely to help you at this stage.
Anyway, dust yourself off and very good luck for the future, you have years and years ahead of you and I hope you find the right career for you.

Interestingly Claude has been down all day today 😂 (I’m not disagreeing with you though!)

This is totally normal for accountancy

Do you know what Claude is though?

Why? At DS’s firm, parents of either sex can work from home. Since Covid, DS works two days a week in the office in London and three days at home, although he doesn’t do it, because of child care. It just saves time and money on commuting.

DS says AI could replace what the trainees do; but it can’t replace the managers, and if they don’t train the trainees, where are the managers going to come from?

None of the women accountants, I know, disliked it.

You’re definitely not too old. You get all sorts of ages and backgrounds undertaking accountancy training. I went straight into CIMA after struggling to get a job in my degree subject. I was 24 when I started studying. I was working as a temp in a finance department and came across CIMA at a graduate career fair and thought why not.

I’m now a finance manager (not as grand as it sounds) in an NHS niche department. Earning equivalent of a senior nurse or AHP. I’m quite happy with the work. I haven’t wanted to progress further although there were opportunities to do so. I’ve had several staff come in either having started AAT or started once in post who have gone on to CIMA and management accountancy. Financial accounting was never something I was interested in. I like being part of a large organisation and communicating with non finance people, prepare reports and costings and really understanding the business. I’m not great at maths at all but I can spot patterns and see when things don’t look right. Communication is an absolutely vital skill in my role.

I am a chartered accountant who has worked in both small practice and industry.
I would encourage you to see if you can find an entry level job in either environment with AAT study support and see if you enjoy the work. There are so many strands to the work that I would be surprised if one wouldn't suit you.
As pp have said, language skills can also be helpful if you get a job in an international org and maturity and demonstrable skills might give you an advantage (ability to plan/prioritise/flex approach to your audience etc).

I work in an area that involves applying rules and nuance and many in my department were laid off as they're developing an AI system to do some of our job. Despite the people training the system telling management it can't do it as well as a human. And despite the escalating business costs of AI.

You're underestimating how much some companies are happy with a poorer standard of work if it's a shiny new thing they've been told saves money.

@thinkingaboutipswich , a friend is a CIMA accountant and the company she works for has them working late for each deadline.
Organisations vary but I expect that it gets very busy around the deadlines.

That’s quite a sweeping statement. How do your male friends feel about it?

I know lots and lots of accountants or people who have used accountancy as a stepping stone to other things. Some of the most successful people I know started as accountants. I think it’s a great foundation and the OP’s age is nothing. I’m 20 years older and in a senior role and I actually regret not having an accounting qualification.

That said - procurement could be a good option for the OP, must be easier to get entry level roles, and you can earn high salaries eventually. It’s awfully dull though IME.

I still see it as a good profession, if you like it. I love doing accounts. Some don't ! Like pp, I'm not threatened by AI.

@Lunalara go for it! You're still in your 20s!

I started a PGCE after uni and by Feb I was struggling. The school/uni told me I would fail if I continued, so I decided to drop out (initially in the hope that i could come back to it later...). Via a contact I managed to get a job in a local firm of accountants - they actually paid for me to do my chartered accountancy qualification. I stayed there for 3 years and then moved to a big 4 firm to do tax and I've done various tax roles ever since.

I would recommend contacting local small firms to see if they're looking for anyone. I would also recommend tax as it's interesting, a bit more niche and there are loads of different specialisms. But I think it's probably best to get a grounding in accountancy first.

You might also be able to use your languages if you go into tax. One of my jobs was in global VAT compliance in a big 4 firm. We did all the global VAT returns for large companies like Microsoft and we had to liaise with our colleagues in various countries across Europe and also with the local tax offices. The firm actually employed quite a few Europeans for their language skills - this was pre Brexit! You'd be very useful if you were able to talk to the local tax office in France or Germany for example.

I’m a chartered accountant, would say go for it. You can technically skip aat if you have a degree (I did) but does mean you have to pick up the basic bookkeeping concepts quickly without much experience and will probably need a training contract with an accountancy firm so will be stuck doing tax, audit etc vs industry finance. Personally I jumped ship into industry as soon as I was out of my training contract restrictions as salary much better.

if you do start as a basic level 1 apprentice though, I think salaries were like 15-18k so depends if you can survive on the money.

I’m well aware- and this has been the case for over a decade.

Claude AI can’t do any of that though.

I know lots who do like accountancy. And once trained there’s lots of opportunities to move around into different roles

You might find there are some graduate roles that come up now if the previous candidate fell through - that’s how I got my first job. It was all very last minute and I was lucky that it all worked out. I think I applied in July, did a few assessments and interviews over the summer and started early October.

Otherwise yes in general larger employers start recruiting for graduate positions almost a year in advance. Smaller local firms will recruit throughout the year. I think with the current job market you just have to go for it and apply for loads to try and get your foot in the door.

Good luck ☺️

Go for it. You’re right you’ve got years and years left of working.
No job is bulletproof these days, we all change and adapt and keep going. Getting started and finding the opening position is the hard part. Best of luck

If you already have a degree you could look for an accounting grad job now. Or as others have suggested, look for an accounts assistant role and start with AAT. I wouldn’t go back to uni for it tbh.

I think a common misconception with accounting is that it’s very maths-y. Of course it is to a degree, but it’s more analytical than adding and subtracting. If you’re working in practice then it’s also heavy on the customer service and team work aspects, lots of emails, phone calls, meetings, WIP/billing. Lots of deadlines which is good if you like structure like me!

Also - I am a CTA and in no way concerned that AI will take my job.

I wish people would stop saying it is vulnerable to AI as if accountancy jobs are going to go poof all of a sudden. Yes AI can and is doing some of the tasks accountants used to do manually, e.g. extracting data from Excel, however it cannot make judgments with all the facts so they still need people. Also if you are using Co-pilot for example, it does 'hallucinate' so any results cannot be guaranteed to be accurate / factual so you need a human to review the results and verify.

My question to you OP is the job of an accountant the type of job you would like? The accountants I know spend long hours pouring over spreadsheets, they have to be analytical, excellent attention to detail and it can be monotonous. Also, depending on the speciality, they may go through peak auditing periods which means very long hours and tight deadlines.

Things like AP invoices used to have to entered manually into your systems. Now, the supplier will email a dedicated inbox, where the system (AI) will read the invoice, and post it onto the AP accounts. Normally a very high success rate. Say goodbye to a team of AP people, entering everything manually with some (understandable) mistakes, and hello to just a couple of people managing any queries and initiating the payment runs.

AR is also much more automated than it used to be.

So you really want a job in the Management Accounts team, as opposed to the sub ledger teams. Harder to get as fewer of them. There were many more AR and AP roles, that acted as the entry point for many future management accountants - all gone or going.