The Barnes Roffe Graduate Scheme is a fantastic opportunity for graduates to work towards earning a highly accredited accountancy qualification whilst also gaining valuable practical work experience in order to develop as a professional accountant. The Scheme is a 3-year programme which has widened participation over recent years with up to 15 new graduates now being taken on each year across our 3 offices in either the audit or tax departments.    

In addition to offering graduates exposure to client matters from the start of the contract, the firm allows all students paid study leave to attend college for both study and revision sessions on the required exam modules. The tuition provider used by the firm is First Intuition who provide all the necessary resources and support for the exams.

Below is a testimony from a recently qualified Chartered Accountant who has undertaken the Graduate Scheme: 

George Perry (Joining date – September 2016)

I thoroughly enjoyed the Graduate Scheme at Barnes Roffe and felt that the role was an ideal position to learn a new profession having just completed a Mathematics degree at University.

The generous exam and study leave given by Barnes Roffe enabled me to pass all my exams within 2 and a half years of joining the firm. I had next to no experience of accounting before joining the firm and therefore found the support of the tutors at First Intuition along with colleagues at Barnes Roffe extremely helpful with no question ever seeming too much.

Within weeks of joining the firm, I was placed out on audit and given real exposure to client matters. Barnes Roffe have a vast array of clients of different sizes in various industries and therefore the work conducted is highly diverse and anything but monotonous. I joined the audit department of the practice but work is not restricted to solely audit work with time also split between accounts, due diligence, bookkeeping, tax and other ad-hoc work. Within a year and a half of joining the firm I was leading audits of significant size which other accountancy practices would not be able to offer to their graduates. The exposure to this work given by the firm so early in my career not only benefitted my accountancy knowledge and developed me as an individual, but also helped with my studies and allowed me to earn the audit qualification due to the number of audit days completed.

One of the main assets of working at Barnes Roffe is the friendliness of all colleagues who are extremely welcoming. A lot of the partners and managers at the firm began their Barnes Roffe career through the graduate scheme and were therefore extremely supportive and happy to assist with any queries I had and were able to share their experiences with me. The social side is very good with activities organised throughout the year along with regular nights out to London which are attended by not only fellow graduates but also managers and partners at the firm which really helps build whole team collegiality and personal relationships with others.   

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed completing the graduate scheme provided by Barnes Roffe and would highly recommend it to any graduate looking to enter the accountancy profession.