career advice please - should I go into accountancy or teaching?

[olliebird]

I need to retrain - Anyone got any useful advice on my two career options.

1. Teaching - i could do a teacher training course in september (either primary or art secondary). I have 5 and 3 year old boys. Will I be able to cope with teaching and my own kids, everyone says teaching is such hard work, so stressfull etc. Is this exagerated or is it really true? Is anyone else managing to do this? Would I have any energy left for my own kids at the end of the day??

1. Accountancy - ive done a lot of bookeeping and am good at it, my accountant has offered me as much bookkeeping work as I want, to do from home. Would have to do proffessional acca exams from home and then I might be able to work 3/4 days per week and I imagine money would be quite good (true or false?). Are there part-time jobs in accountancy? Is it easy to work from home odd days when kids ill? Are the exams really hard? Any one else done this or doing this?? Not planning to be a highflyer, so would I be expected to do long hours in office?

Trying to make a decision - any advice would be much appreciated

i agree with you ali5! Good point.

olliebird I doubt if you'll get a place for PGCE in Sept for primary (needed to apply by Dec), secondary should be OK tho.

Ali5 is right AFAIK - first year as an NQT you would need to be full time, so bear that in mind.

No hols cover needed tho (quite relevant IMHO)

Know little or nothign abotu accountancy so cannot advise you there.

Not sure what part time accountants earn but it's easier to be off sick etc than in a school where you're letting colleagues down. Depends on your personality. Teaching really suits some people and others find it really hard work, no chance to stop for 10 minutes at your leisure for a coffee break or squeeze a hair cut in at lunch time like you can in office/accountancy jobs. I'd also say accountancy is hugely more interesting but that's just my own view and others differ so you could end up with low pay and hard work you don't enjoy teaching and high pay and work you love in accountancy.

thanks thanks
very interesting
difficult decision

do mums find the office hours hard in accountancy. I imagine if working from home is increasing this is great for mums, especially with older kids so you can fit in the kids when they really need you. If you have a baby would the firm have you back after a longer period than a year?

Again, I can only speak from experience which is that my firm is desperate not to loose you. We invest massively in our trainees both in terms of our time and financially. When somebody goes on maternity leave, there's enhanced maternity pay (full pay then 1/3 salary) plus a 6 week pay bonus for just coming back.

There are career breaks on offer too - which can be used (I imagine) if somebody wanted to extend maternity leave.

But of course most firms don't offer these packages - only the big ones and they do have expectations of you. This financial year I missed my daughter's carol service at which she was singing to do a client presentation and I was on MATERNITY LEAVE at the time. Of course they couldn't "make" me do it but...

Working from home is great but can't really be done with kids about the place - imagine if a client phones you and there's a crying baby in the background.

Office hours... If you want to get ahead you're going to have to put hours in to anything. That's the way it is with everything, but I think the difference is Accountancy doesn't really have a ceiling like teaching does.

My sister is an accountant and seems to have found no problem getting part time work. Where she works currently she pretty much decides her own hours. She must also be making good money if her new BMW company car is anything to go by.

I do a lot of work with accountants male and female. It is easier to be flexible with it than teaching and if you're good at it you can make a lot of money too and it's intellectually satisfying. it's quite hard to teach a class of 8 year olds from home (although internet, web cams etc I suppose eventually might change that) but not so hard to do some bits of that role.

those of you who say accountancy is interesting - can you enlighten me - I have only the vaguest idea.

I work in an Accounts Department and am currently studying for my acca qualification. I started studying when I was on Maternity leave with dd1 and in 2002 qualified as am Accounting Technician, then had a break before starting the professional scheme last year, hope to qualify by the end of next year. The exams work for me because I can study from home (my dh works shifts so I wouldn't be able to go to college every week in the evenings), I usually study when dc's are in bed so it doesn't mean I miss spending time with them. I currently work full-time and earn good money, I am in the process of applying to work 2 days a week from home, the company I work for have said they don't think it will be a problem, I'm just now waiting for my application to go though the official flexible-working route.

When I was made redundant last year, I considered training to be a teacher, but long term I could earn lots more as an accountant and the hours are generally flexible depending on the company you work for. I guess the advantage of teaching is that you get all the school holidays off.

IF you go down the accountancy route do you want to be an accountant or a bookkeeer? If you do the qualified route it is a lot of work, lots to learn. I studied towards ACCA but in the end decided against finishing it(got half way through). I am qualified AAT though and that is worth doing. You can get lots of jobs with that. Not too badly paid IMO but depends on the salary you want. pt working is very possible but IME flexibility helps and i haven't got that so find it hard.

When dc's are at full time school i want to be a self employed bookkeeper. Although may start this towards the end of the year as it will be very flexible. I'll then decide my own hours and can work evenings and weekends hopefully.

I'd imagine teaching is more inflexible and harder to do pt but that is just my opinion, not fact.

And if you decide accountany you don't necessarily need a qualification. I know lots of people qualified by experiance, although it may be harder to get a job that way. And with the ours it depends on the firm of accountants.

Have you considered doing a sage bookkeeper course. You can earn a lot with it and there's always lots of jobs advertised. You won't find that hard at all if you can do books manually already and understand accountancy basics like double entry, balancing banks etc

How about going down the accountancy route with the medium-term goal of becoming finance director of an art/design company with lots of international business? To use ALL your skills...

Finance director posts - pretty senior.

Basically Ollie, accountancy is divided up into 4 parts:

Tax - advising companies, partnerships, individuals (some of them are pretty rich) on tax issues. Far more interesting than it sounds.

Audit - both internal and external.

Consulting - forget it unless you are very high flying (competitive in extreme to get in)

Corporate Finance - advising companies in areas such as forensic accuntancy, mergers & acquisitions.

Just log onto any of the big 4's websites and you'll get an idea. Accountancy is a massive area (a bit like law) and I would highly recommend it.

Hi - I'm an accountant but deal with trusts & estates. I know it sounds really sad but I really love my job. I'm now in what I suppose is the middle bracket of earning for an accountant but I only started off as a secretary there but managed to get a job with a half decent firm where they are keen on you getting qualifications & bettering yourself, not that there's anything wrong with being a secretary. Last year I studied for my Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners Diploma & somehow managed to pass even though I have 4 kids! They're also really flexible if you need to have time off if the children are sick which I imagine you probably wouldnt get in teaching. When I look back over 10 yrs from when I started off as a secretary now I'm assistant manager of the department!

Teaching, but maybe I am biased

I am an ex-accountant (ACCA qualified) who is just about to start a teacher training course (primary school).

pgce year can be hell - i worked 12 hr days, commuted for two & worked all weekend. would be very difficult with dc's. you can do on the job training so you're getting paid but still mega hours. alos, not good for flexibility - when school is open you have to be there.
otoh - if you only wokr 3 days, it is pretty easy to 'up' that once you want to go full time as kids get older. working full time, at secondary, you would start around £20k (i think - it's a long time since i started)
you have to really love the job, cos when it's 5 pm, and you still have 3 hours marking to do, you must WANT to do your work.

this thread is actually making me want to be an accountatn, although i hated maths at school!

really interesting advice. I think i am worried about teaching because I do feel you really really have to want to teach and should feel a real urge, and I suppose I feel I'm not the forceful person I imagine you need to be to teach.

I'm thinking now that its best to do the acca exams and hope in the future to work part time (3/4 days per week) so I can have time with kids and time to do my own art. Money is a big issue becuase dh doesn't earn much and I imagine I could earn a good amount as accountant in London, although being a late starter (im 36) may not earn as much as other accountants. (I plan to do the exams because I imagine accounting is more interesting than bookeeping and better paid.)

I will register for ACCA exams and try a couple whilst helping out in my sons art class one afternoon a week so I can keep this option open, probably I need to spend more time shadowing in classroom to get an idea about teaching. So still undecided but really helped by the advice. Have a lot of admiration for teachers by the way!

indiajane - you completely missed out management accountancy, which is a HUGE area of accountancy, just not something which the 'big 4' firms do much of.

olliebird - management accountancy is great if you are interested in creating lots of reports and analysing and advising on businesss decisions, working within industry rather than in an accountancy firm.

I've worked for one of the big 6 (as it was then!), and then spent several years in industry, before becoming a consultant working in a finance/IT crossover role.

I agree with the poster who suggested starting with AAT. It will give you a chance to see how much study you can cope with with the children, as the full exams do involve a lot of work (I did CIMA).

Yep, missed out management accounts - sorry, bit of a blinkered view - having only worked in accountancy (previosly a solicitor) where I am now (which is Deloitte.)

Jura - we're always looking for new recruites

Accountancy for various reasons, esp if you have no vocation to teach.

About ten years ago, pre DD, I worked as an accounts clerk and loved it - I was always tempted by manangement accounts and always found an excuse to ask the MAs if they needed an extra pair of hands to complete projects esp at year end. Much more interesting seeing the whole picture of what was going on in the organisation than calculating nominal ledger codes or inputting them . Payment dates were always fun though - it's strangely satisfying spending other people's money even virtually ;).

Had to make that decision myself a while back. I'm sticking to teaching as it's more family friendly. If you retrain in accountancy, the exams are hard work and nigh impossible with young children I think.

Accountancy does earn you more money but do you really need to earn £1m when you become a partner?

Just my opinion though, each to their own.

I am like KathH - I LOVE my job to bits - best job I EVER HAD.
I work part time.
I am not fully qualified, but more than part qualified.
I am MORE than happy with my salary.

The thought of studying again - I don't think I could do it - do you have any idea how hard it is ?
But, the advice here is pretty unanimous, isn't it ? - I think that says it all.

Nothing against Indiajane - because she sounds really nice, but... I HATE THE BIG 4.
I chose to leave practice and now work in industry, even though I am chartered. The possibilities for you are endless.