Experiences of anyone's DC going down the school leaver apprenticeship route instead of Uni. Regrets? Best thing ever?

[SasherinSuite]

DS has been offered a Trainee Chartered Accountant role at one of the top 10 firms. He also has offers to do a Finance degree at Uni.

On the face of it it's a no brainer as he will be paid £20k pa and the firm pay all tuition fees for the ACA exams plus he gets day release to college. So in 4 years he will have his qualifications plus no student debt.

But......He won't have the Uni experience. No living away from home for the first time, having a social life with people his own age etc.

Any experiences?

Did you read the comments below the article in The Accountants Daily? "The more automated our clients' accounting systems become, the more they need us when they inevitably muck it up."

Robots may take over big companies like PwC but back in the real world "Small businesses accounted for 99.3% of all private sector businesses at the start of 2016 and 99.9% were small or medium-sized (SMEs). Total employment in SMEs was 15.7 million; 60% of all private sector employment in the UK." FSB

This is from parliament, in case anyone doesn't trust the FSB's version "The usual definition of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is any business with fewer than 250 employees. There were 5.4 million SMEs in the UK in 2016, which was over 99% of all businesses."

That's a lot of non-experts who need advice and guidance.

Senua

It is the accountancy functions at small firms that is most susceptible to automation.

You see threat, I see opportunity.
We've gained work out of RTI and will do so again out of MTD.

Senua,

Pervasive connectivity with devices connecting to software and documents on the cloud are replacing shoeboxes full of paper and driving to the client to review documents.

There will certainly be opportunities for the best as accountancy firms transition from consolidated hubs to divergent models spread across more locations but with fewer employees in each location.

OP,

I'm not trying to discourage your DS from accountancy or from going down the apprenticeship route.

It is just important to be aware that the decision is no longer the 'no-brainer' that it was a decade or so ago. Best of luck to your DS and his decision.

Where do you live and where's the job - one thing I think would be miserable is starting the routine of a long very busy commute at age 19. Particularly if you can't get home under your own steam after drinking.
What as the chances of him finding a house share before too long? I do think living independently is important too.