ACCA vs ICAEW

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They're both very similar and allow you to go into the same roles

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ACCA is internationally recognised (in over 179 countries at the time of writing), so you can pretty much work anywhere in the world except for the remaining 16 countries including Canada and US.

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ACA is more highly regarded than ACCA. With any accounting qualifications in other countries, their professional accounting qualification is more highly regarded than ACCA. In other words, ACCA is less desired in any one country

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Should you wish to convert your ACA into the local equivalent if you work abroad, you would need to see if there is a mutual reciprocation agreement (MRA) between ICAEW with the local accounting body e.g. CPA Canada, CPA Australia, ICAI, etc.

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Should you work abroad in any country with either qualifications, you would likely need to sit at least 2 papers (one on local tax and the other on local corporation law - for obvious reasons) and get relevant work experience under who is qualified for your accounting body i.e. you need supervision from an ACCA accountant to qualify under ACCA, and an accountant with whatever professional accounting body for the conversion from ACA.

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Both have similar requirements in becoming fully qualified: pass all exam papers and get the necessary work experience under the appropriate accountant e.g. ACCA accountant for ACCA, and ICAEW accountant for ACA.

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ACA has 15 papers, whereas ACCA has 13 (one ACCA paper being roughly the equivalent of 2 since it's a big one).

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There's no rule to say that you can't have both ACCA and ACA. Should you wish to do ACCA after ACA, you would need to sit 4 more papers at professional level and get 3 years' work experience under an ACCA accountant. Should you wish to do ACA after ACCA, you would need to sit 3 more papers and get 3 years' experience under an ACA accountant. However, any employer seeing you have both ACCA and ACA would raise an eyebrow or 2 - it's not necessary and very excessive. (It makes more sense to either have ACA + CIMA or ACCA+CIMA). Do check the exemption calculator at both ICAEW and ACCA to verify this as the rules can change. Also it doesn't matter when you get your experience for either qualifications so long you get it i.e. you can get the experience whilst you are studying for your papers, but I would be very concerned if it takes you more than 3 years to pass all the papers that you need to pass.

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If you do work at one of the Big4 with international offices, you can find the transition to other countries smoother than if you did everything yourself.

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ICAEW has a pass mark of 60% from the last time I have checked, whereas ACCA has a pass mark of 50%. Both should be appropriately difficult.