Brandon

It’s taken me a while to get here but I wouldn’t change a thing. I was 23 when I started accountancy training but you’re never too old.

I most enjoyed maths, business and IT at school so when my teachers suggested I should be an accountant, I was excited to go for it. I applied for an AAT apprenticeship with Kaplan when I left school but I didn’t get it. That knocked my confidence so I decided that becoming an accountant might not be right for me.

I got a job in a pub after completing sixth form and I quickly worked my way up to Acting Manager. I was good at it and thought I had found ‘my thing’, but I’d be up from 7am to 2am some days. It was a struggle, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I left and got a job at Wetherspoons, it was better there and I started working my way up again. But after years of working in pubs I kept wondering, what if I had become an accountant?

My partner at the time encouraged me by saying you’ve always been interested in accountancy, it plays to your strengths, do something you love and can be passionate about. Then Covid came, it forced me to re-evaluate. I decided I wasn’t going back to hospitality and so I enrolled on a level 2 AAT accountancy course. As soon as I started learning I loved it, more so than anything I’d studied at school.

I joined PKF Francis Clark to do a level 3 and 4 AAT apprenticeship. I’m on track to qualify as an accountant in March. I’m really progressing and taking on new responsibilities. It’s amazing. There is this idea that accountants are boring or like robots, but that’s not true. Everyone is so friendly and positive and there’s loads of energy in my team! I’m the loud one and they support me and let me be me. They value me for being ‘people person’ able to build positive relationships. I love it here.”