I will never forget traveling to London to explore the incredible city and learning about accounting processes in the United Kingdom. Having the chance to visit multiple accounting firms, including all the Big Four, in London was a remarkable experience. The chance to network and connect with new individuals during these business visits was just one of the many great aspects of the program. It was remarkable to learn about how accounting differs between the U.S. and the U.K. Of course, there are different accounting standards that each country follows, but some other differences related to cultural differences which was fascinating to learn.

A major cultural difference between the U.S. and the U.K. relates to how students receive an education in accounting. In the U.S., it is very typical for students to receive a Master of Accountancy and then sit for the CPA exam. When traveling abroad, we learned that this is not the case for students in the U.K. We learned that a lot of students do not even study accounting at the university level. They rather just find themselves working at a Big Four firm because they needed a job at the time they graduated from school. I had the opportunity to connect with individuals from the partner level to the associate level who did not study accounting at university. Getting to talk to a partner who did not study accounting and hearing his path where he currently is in his career was very interesting. Once working at an accounting firm for a while, they gain more knowledge in accounting principles and can decide to take the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which is the equivalent of the CPA certification in the U.S.

The testing certifications are another major difference, in which the CPA has four exams while the ACCA consists of 13 exams. While being abroad, another cultural difference I learned between the U.S. and the U.K. was the work-life balance. In the States, accounting a lot of the time gets a negative connotation for all the long hours individuals must work, and there is not a good work-life balance. In the U.K., on average all individuals in the accounting field work fewer hours than accounting professionals in the U.S. Moreover, employees in the U.K. are typically entitled to more vacation days than U.S. employees. We learned that the work-life balance generally proved to be better in the U.K. than in the U.S.

Overall, I am very grateful for the opportunity to travel abroad and learn about major differences when it comes to accounting between the United States and the United Kingdom. Experiencing all these new opportunities and cultural differences has made me eager to travel back to Europe soon or even explore the possibility of a rotation in London once I start my career with my Big Four firm.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Accountancy: United Kingdom