If you are studying accountancy or finance in college, you'll be in demand when you graduate. Larger accountancy firms offer their training places after interviews with final year students (known as the "milk round") and many students secure their training contract before they sit their final exams. Other graduates apply to smaller firms, or decide to train in business, usually in our Flexible Route.

As well as taking our exams, students are required to gain relevant work experience in a training role. The required period of experience for university graduates is 3.5 years, either under a training contract or in our flexible route.

You don't need to wait until you graduate to start your application - once you have your exam results transcript, you should get in touch with us to discuss your next steps.

Some of our most successful students originally qualified with a degree in a non-accounting subject – each year, about 15% of our new student intake come from non-accounting, and even non-business backgrounds. All graduates from recognised 3rd level institutions are eligible to start our programme, and you don't need any prior knowledge or experience in accountancy, or even in a business setting - we'll start you at the foundation level of our course, namely our first year exams, "CAP 1".

For non-business graduates, full time one year diplomas in accounting are offered in leading universities, aimed at students from non-business degrees.  Holders of these diplomas can expect exemptions from CAP 1, but this is not essential to start Chartered Accountancy.

As a non-accounting graduate, while you'll have a few more exams to sit, you won't have to complete more work experience than an accounting graduate - 3.5 years is the requirement for all graduates. If you're an ATI graduate, you'll be expected to complete 4 years of experience. There's more information on this on our Accounting Technicians page.

Full-time, one year Masters (M. Acc) programmes are offered to business students at several colleges. These programmes will give student exemptions from CAP 1 and CAP 2, leaving just the final "FAE" exams to complete. 

Students must meet the full CAP 1 requirement on the basis of their primary qualification or external examination success in order to be eligible to claim exemption from CAP 2.

 As well as the FAE exams, masters students must complete 3 years of required work experience, either in a training contract, or in the flexible route. See our Entry Routes page for more details.