Could You Have a Future in Finance?

PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the world’s largest professional services organisations, working with a huge variety of clients - businesses, charities and even governments – helping them measure their financial performance and improve the way they work. This could involve conducting audits of their company results, giving them tax advice, or pointers on how to manage their risks more effectively.

We’re the No 1 Graduate Employer of Choice (The 2005 Times High Fliers survey), recruiting over 1000 students into our firm each year, but did you know that you don’t actually need a degree to join us? University isn’t for everyone – many students worry about racking up huge student debts, whilst others would simply prefer to get stuck into a career after school or college. At PwC, we recognise this and that’s why we offer school leaver careers in addition to our successful Gap Year Programme.

So, you may be set on a career in Accounting and Finance, but you’re not sure if university is for you. No problem – our Technician Programmes are designed for students just like you. Technicians join us after A Levels (or equivalent) working as an important part of our Assurance and Tax teams. Our Technicians earn a competitive salary, and so student debt shouldn’t be a worry. Not only this, but they also get plenty of hands-on work experience while studying towards their professional qualifications.

PwC Accounting Technicians join our Assurance & Audit teams and study towards an Accounting Technician qualification, which takes around 2 years to complete. After completing these exams, they can then choose to continue their studies to the next level, and could qualify as a Certified or Chartered Accountant within 4-5 years of joining PwC. This is one of the fastest ways to become a fully qualified Accountant – it normally takes graduate joiners between 2-3 years to qualify. Technicians play an important role in our client teams, contributing fully to audits and other business projects. Our audit clients range from multinational organisations and UK companies to public sector clients such as schools, government departments and charities. As you can imagine, there’s lots of client contact and you have to be prepared to travel to client sites, which can mean quite a bit of UK travel at busy times of the year.

The Tax Technician route is a little different, as we give students the opportunity to settle into their role before embarking on professional tax qualifications. Tax Technicians join our International Mobility Team and provide help and assistance to companies who have employees working in more than one country.  As you probably know, there are different income and social tax systems across the world and tax rules also differ from country to country, and so PwC are relied upon to provide our clients with lots of guidance and advice. We do this by working closely with our colleagues across the world to do things like prepare an individual’s UK and foreign tax returns, give tax briefings to individuals moving from country to country and calculate UK and foreign taxes people have to pay.  This might sound complicated – but as with our Accounting Technician Programme, we provide you with all the training and support you need along the way!

All you need to apply for a role as a Technician is a strong interest in business and finance, 280 UCAS points in 3 or more A Levels (or equivalent), good communication and teamwork skills and plenty of motivation and ambition to succeed. We recruit throughout the year, but we do advise students to apply early as vacancies can fill quickly in popular locations.

One of the best ways to find out more about these roles is to attend a PwC Schools Open Day. These events are held during half term breaks and longer holiday periods and are open to all Year 12 & 13 students who are interested in finding out more about working at PwC. We run two types of Open Day – ‘Pwc Schools Open Days’ and ‘Girls in the City Open Days’, which as the name suggests, have been designed to give female students an insight into the world of business and finance. Open Days take place all over the UK and you can book your place at one of our 2006 events via our website – visit the ‘Come and Meet Us’ section and search for an event near you. On the day, you’ll tackle a business game, take part in a couple of team-based exercises, meet some PwC people and pick up some useful hints and tips on successful application and interview techniques.

For more information on any of these opportunities, or to read short profiles from some of our current Technicians, visit our website www.pwc.com/uk/careers/