Meet Luke, our Assurance Apprentice based at EY in Luton.
In this article, he shares why soft skills are important and how he’s getting a head start in his career by choosing the apprenticeship route at EY.
Why did you want to start a career in Assurance?
I decided to choose Audit as the business area for my apprenticeship because I knew it would offer me a broad insight into the world of accounting and finance. Since joining, I have found that the work I perform everyday has really suited my inquisitive mind.
Why did you choose the apprenticeship route at EY?
I chose to join via the apprenticeship route straight after finishing my A-levels as I had always known I wanted a career in finance. By joining EY through this apprenticeship programme, I will become ACA qualified nearly two years earlier than my peers who have gone to university, and I'll have no debt alongside four years of valuable work experience.
One of the reasons I chose EY is that due to its size, I knew there would be a chance I could get to travel – and I am lucky to have had this experience already, and that there would be plenty of room for career development. I enjoy coming to the office every day and speaking to someone new or learning something new about someone!
Tell us about your apprentice role at EY
I joined EY in Luton on the Business Apprenticeship program straight after having finished my A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, Economics and French in 2021. I always had an interest in economics and one of my favourite parts of the job is seeing how different economic events effects different clients in my portfolio and the impact that this subsequently has on their financial performance and decision making.
My job varies massively on a day-to-day basis, I can spend some days attending and leading various meetings with members of the finance department of the client, querying them on the decisions they have made, asking why figures have changed differently to what they expected or gaining an understanding of their whole business process.
On other days where I will be preparing workbooks in excel, analysing the postings the client has made and performing recalculations to ensure that the amounts the client has recognised in the financial statements are reasonable.
To then be on a stock count where I'll be ensuring that the inventory our client has stated they have is actually true, from cars to bacon to chemicals I could be counting anything!
I have also managed to get involved in a lot of extra activities in my office and in my teams. As a member of our corporate responsibility team I have been involved in organising events such as a Mud run and football tournaments for different local and national charities.
What do you like most about your role?
I love the diversity of the people I work with, the clients I work with and the work I do.
At the EY Luton Office, I work with people from all over the world, we have speakers of over twenty-five languages in our office alone and I love learning about different people's cultures and childhoods.
In Audit, we work in teams daily, we often find ourselves sitting in audit rooms where we will have detailed discussions about the work but also about each other and you really get to know your colleagues on a personal level.
I also love the broad client portfolio I can work with. I have clients in industries ranging from the sports sector to the medical industry and so I get a broad insight into different industries. I love learning about the new businesses I work with and how the way we audit varies from client to client.
What advice would you give to anyone considering applying to the Assurance Apprenticeship programme?
Be yourself and be different! I'm a keen believer in giving new things a go, growing up I played in every sports team that my school offered while also playing in the orchestra and performing in the school theatre productions. I remember walking down the corridor while carrying my violin and someone said to me 'you play the violin? that's not a very Luke thing to do’. For me doing these 'different' things gave me a great sense of pride.
Now that I have started work, I can see every day, the transferable skills I picked up from these different hobbies and how they can help me with my job. All the activities and hobbies you do, can help to improve your soft skills which are super important for a client-facing job like audit. Even though they often don't seem that inherently relevant to the job, they are all really important.