How hard is the ACA content?

In my experience (completed 8 of the exams) it's pretty damn easy. The reputation of the ACA as being difficult is far exaggerated, at least as far as the middle stage exams (didn't complete the 3 upper stage ones obviously).

The job itself however, is boring, repetitive, and makes you wish you had more alcohol and access to the roof of your company building.

Easy? ...

what were your A-levels grades and which degree did you do?

I got AAA at A level (back then A was the highest grade), did Philosophy at a rank 10-20 uni, got a 2.1. So not the best, not the worst.

The ACA exams themselves are a piece of cake providing you have some decent exam technique. Do the practice questions in the book they will give you. Once you've done those you should be able to remember it, certainly enough to get the 55% needed. I scored in the 80-90% range for the first 6 exams and I certainly wasn't studying for hours every night like they say you will have to - instead I crammed like hell for the 2 days before each exam and did the practice questions, it's really not that difficult.

The next stage exams (i.e. the middle 6) are tougher in terms of it not being multiple choice, but easier in some ways because you'll get more study leave and you'll have more tuition. You'll need to work more for those but then again you won't be at work so it all evens out. In no way do you need to start any heavy work before your period of study leave. I only ended up doing 2 of these 6 exams because I was fired from the company before i could take the next set of exams (nothing to do with exam failure, something completely unrelated).

No idea about the final three but considering the other exams I doubt they were that hard. Personally I found university finals exams to be much more challenging and requiring more work.

Thanks for your post, this gives me hope .

I'm not joining a big4 so I'm not sure how my structure will look.

Sorry to heard about your dismissal, have you found another position to sit the remaining exams?

Heh, I'd rather walk over broken glass than do more accounting. But that was 100% to do with the job (which sucked ass) rather than the exams (which tbh I found to be a nice break from the monotony of working).

lol! What sector have you gone into now if you don't mind me asking? I'm guessing you left big4 and found something more interesting elsewhere?

Also, in terms of Maths, what do I need to be solid with? Thanks for answering my questions!

I took a couple of years out to go teach abroad in China. It's pretty cool, I'm banking a ton more money then I ever did as an ACA student, plus I get my own place rather than house sharing. No long term big money earning potential though (i.e. I'll never be earning 6 figures+ a year doing this) so the low stress and easy money now has its drawbacks too.

Regarding maths, so long as you were good at GCSE level you'll be fine. It'd help quite a bit if you were reasonably quick at mental maths (i.e. adding/subtraction/ratios/multiplication/division), but truthfully providing you're not completely numbers illiterate you'll be fine.

What is much more important is having a good memory as it's true there's a lot of 'stuff' to learn (although pretty much none of it is complex). Throughout school, I always crammed like hell a couple of weeks before GCSE's/A levels/uni exams, doing loads of hours in a short timeframe, rather than stretching out the learning and revision over a longer period of time. If you can do the same, that will help a lot, as you'll be able to do all or at least the bulk of your learning during the study leave periods, when you won't have to go into the office.

Ah interesting, it's always nice to hear what people have gone into after other things. I'm doing my ACA at a small local practice but longer term, whilst I can go down the big4/corporate route, I'm not sure I want to.

But it's tough because I also want to work abroad at some point as we only have one life and to spend the whole of your life not experiencing a different way of life would be a shame imo. 80-90 years in one country is ages! However, I feel I can only achieve this ambition by working for someone bigger in the future. Hopefully I can get a job in some kind of boutique where it won't be so corporate.

I've just looked on the ICAEW website and the first 6 are meant to be Year 1 uni difficulty, and the middle 6 have a mix of year 1 and 2 difficulty from the looks of things, so it shouldn't be overly hard like you say. My only problem is that I studied History at uni and accounting is 100% foreign to me!!

Honestly, if you're content enough with a middle class lifestyle in the UK, sitting in an office, a couple of nice holidays a year, a house, 2.5 kids and a dog etc, it wouldn't be so bad. After qualification you can easily get a 50k a year job pretty quick that is strictly 9-5. It's boring, but meh, it'll pay the bills no problem, and if you're prepared to just sit at your desk for 10-20 years of that, you'll get to senior manager level, and upper 5 figures in the end.

My problem was that I couldn't envisage a life sat in front of excel spreadsheets and doing what I considered to be pointless work (i.e. stuff like printing off a month-end report, getting it signed by 5 different people, then filing it away into a box no one will ever look it, and after 7 years throwing the contents of said box away - all to satisfy some 'audit requirements'. My second problem was the job was in the UK. And having been abroad...I can't stand living in the UK. If you like the UK and don't mind nodding and smiling while working your way through repetitive tasks, there's worse jobs around for sure.


I had the same sort of idea - but realise that most of those cushy expat jobs abroad are for high level senior management types (i.e. you're going to have to put in a fair few years...10 at least...before you have a realistic shot of achieving that dream).



No way are the first 6 year 1 uni difficulty. They're multiple choice questions and you only need 55% in them. You'd get 25% on average just by randomly clicking buttons (as there's only 4 choices per question). They're AS level difficulty at the very most.

In my experience (completed 8 of the exams) it's pretty damn easy. The reputation of the ACA as being difficult is far exaggerated, at least as far as the middle stage exams (didn't complete the 3 upper stage ones obviously).

The job itself however, is boring, repetitive, and makes you wish you had more alcohol and access to the roof of your company building.