I would like to become a chartered accountant but you can become a chartered accountant through economics or accounting and financeYou can become a chartered accountant without doing an accounting degree as mentioned above. In fact, your A Levelsare enough to get onto an apprenticeship or trainee position in accounting.
A typical professional accounting qualification takes about 3 years if you pass all the modules (13-15) first time round (this would also meet the work experience requirement for all bodies as far as I know). If you take a degree, you would need to do another 3 years on top to fully qualify because you need the 3 years' experience despite getting up to 9 exemptions through your degree.
If you didn't do an accounting degree, you would need at least 3 years to qualify (as if you started from A Levels). This is not restricted to degrees in economics though; you could have done a degree in medicine, philosophy, property, computer science, French, etc. and still get in because they care more about your A Level requirements over what degree you did. Typically, if you can get onto a degree, you would have met the minimum entry requirements for the professional accounting qualifications anyway.
And if i change my mind then I still have other things in economics that I can doTypically with an economics degree, you can go and become an economist, but you typically are asked to have postgrad degrees on top as previously discussed. Should you decide not to go into economics, you can typically enter 600+ different other professions (I will not list them all out) that ask for a degree in any subject (e.g. trainee solicitor, teaching), or did not require a degree in the first place (e.g. accounting, business, marketing, government services, property, writing). You can do something similar with a degree in accounting or finance (although I can't say you can go into economics with a degree in those subjects).
Should you wish to go into academia and do research in a specific subject, then you typically need a degree in that subject. There are some exceptions to this though, but they're not common.
But in accounting and finance you can do a yr of placement. See
@ajj2000's comment above. ajj2000 is also a good person to talk about jobs in accounting.
which one do you think is harder to do at university MA Economics or MA Accounting and finance.Define harder. What's difficult for me is not difficult for someone else, and vice versa. I'm more of a maths person, so economics comes more naturally to me. For someone who likes essays and art forms more, accounting and finance might be easier.
On the other hand, I have seen people with degrees in maths and chemistry from top universities struggle to get through even the basic levels of an accounting qualification (equivalent of 1st year modules). Some people doing less STEM like subjects such as history, philosophy, and geography had an easier time getting through accounting. If these same people did a degree in economics, the reverse might be true.
Having said that, I have seen people with medical degrees qualify as accountants, so you can never know. Those who stick with it and study properly usually get through it.
When people say something is difficult, they usually meant it's more mathematical. In which case, I would say economics is "harder". However, accounting and finance isn't exactly straightforward, and you can get difficult maths in some of the finance content in some degrees, as previously discussed (they make this apparent by requiring that you have A Level Maths in their entry requirements).
As previously stated, as you have A Level maths, you should be fine with either unless you're going in the deep end and do mathematical economics, financial mathematics, financial engineering, or actuarial science.
If you do decide to do a postgrad in economics or do an economics degree, I would strongly recommend that you do a quantitiative degree (they require A Level Maths). A nonquantitiative economics degree would not likely allow you to become an economist.
Just out of interest, why is it MA Economics or MA Accounting and Finance? Do you intend to go to a Scottish university?