450 days.

What constitutes as 'relevant'? Could you, say do two years in practice and then finish off elsewhere?

If you wanted to leave early, how much would it cost to pay back the fees? (big4 ACA)

I'm going to go ahead and presume you've got the common sense to realise that even if the president of ICAEW himself was here reading your post, he could not answer your question when you've given no indication of how far into the ACA you are.

Why would you want to leave? Best bet would be to fail if you want out without paying fees.

I was referring to the case where you wanted to leave after completing all the exams. At my firm (big four), you tend to have a year and bit where just waiting to time qualify. If you leave early is the extra money you get going to cover the amount you have to pay in fees?

Until you qualify with the experience (aka the extra year) you don't have the ACA right? Surely your career prospects are better waiting until you have it and then moving on? Pretty sure leaving now would be a poor choice.

On top of exam fees, have you considered how it will look on your cv? You can bet that any jobs you'll be going for, there will be other big 4 qualified accountants applying as well. You can also bet that HR will be familiar enough to expect 3 years on those CVs. So why have you only got 2? Best case you look like you've got less experience to offer, worst case you look like you couldn't cut it. Neither may be the reality, but that's what it looks like to a prospective employer who doesn't know you, but knows all their other ACA applicants have 3 years experience whereas you have 2.

Why is it that you want to leave early? Purely for the money? I ask out of interest as I'm joining Deloitte this September.

Bored to death. I'm better than this and I think I'm too qualified for what I'm doing. Would rather be working in the markets, I don't really care if it's buy or sell side, just need to get out of here.

Bored to death. I'm better than this and I think I'm too qualified for what I'm doing. Would rather be working in the markets, I don't really care if it's buy or sell side, just need to get out of here.

Well that doesn't sound very encouraging

What is it that you're doing? Is that the norm or have you just got a bad manager or something? Turned down consulting at IBM to do this (Corporate Audit), was lured by career prospects, hope I won't regret it

Lol. Was the IBM role Strategy or Technology Consulting. If it was the former I think you probably should have gone for IBM.

Well that doesn't sound very encouraging

What is it that you're doing? Is that the norm or have you just got a bad manager or something? Turned down consulting at IBM to do this (Corporate Audit), was lured by career prospects, hope I won't regret it

It was a Business Consultant role, but realistically it was what most places would term technology consulting, I think they just call it that to differentiate between the techy roles. It did sound quite interesting, but I think that big4 will provide the better career opportunities long term (hopefully). Also didn't escape my notice that while they both start on the same money approximately, by the time I'd expect to be mid 40s with Deloitte I'd still be around 30 with IBM apparently (spoke to grads). That said, I imagine big4 audit require considerably longer hours and probably isn't as interesting work. Long term though I'm hoping it leads to more interesting (and high paying!) work. Turned down a marketing role at Jag as well, amazingly that was the highest paying of the three Prospects looked a bit shoddy though IMO.

Ahh well time will tell, if it's crap I'm blaming the times top 100 for misleading me