Self studying a professional qualification

[ilikeicecrea]

How common is this? I'm specifically asking for when the company is not sponsoring it.

Is it worth it, does it actually help in getting a job/salary progression?

I'm looking at 3 qualifications in particular. The CFA, the ACA and CIMA.

A lot of people study for CFA independently. The same applies to CIMA where their FLP programme is specifically designed for self funders who are self studying.

It's almost unheard of for anyone to self fund ACA. There are On Demand study programmes which are cheaper. It's much harder to demonstrate that you have relevant practical experience for ACA, whereas CIMA is far more pragmatic.

I self studied ACCA years ago and passed everything first time. But I already had a job in the field and relevant experience so could qualify once I'd done all the exams.
It wasn't impossibly hard for someone who had good exam technique. Didn't do very well in the law exam but was a global prize winner in a final option paper.

Do people self study the CFA to break into finance? Or are they already in the field?

Already there, but without sponsorship

You have to be employed by an ACA firm and sponsored to do it

Very common for ACCA and CIMA both for people working in the field whose companies wouldn’t pay for training and for those doing other jobs looking to move into accounts roles.

Don’t get confused between ACA (chartered accountant) and ACCA (certified chartered accountant). You can only do the first on a training contract with a firm, but loads of people self study ACCA. You can start while working in another area, but you’ll need a certain amount of experience (might be 3 years?) to fully qualify.

Thanks for the replies. I was wondering mostly about the CFA.