Can anyone confirm how much PWC and the other big 4 firms pay graduates who will study towards ACA?Alsowhat section of such firms or rather what experience would be most relevant for beocming a hedge fund or PE analyst after?Many thanks.

£26k at a grad in london, and about £35k when you finish, I think. Obviously this might be different 3 years from now.

Hi,I have 3 years of experience in consulting (for HP for P2P) Can anyone let me know which is a good consulting firm for me to join and what is the salary I can expect.REGDS

Daisy, open questions never get good answers...

When you finish, it's MUCH more than 35K depending on where you go - over 80K for banks etc. At the big 4 it's around > 40K in London. Obviously get experience in FS at Big4 esp. PE, IB and hedgefunds. Get financial modelling, due diligence and related work. Essentially, wherever you want to go post-ACA, get the experience during ACA. Big4 firms are big enough and have the best clients for you to do that. Note - this is not consulting, but it is a good option if that's what you want.

Ok, you seem to know what you’re talking about. I’m very interested in doing my ACA, happy to do the 3 year grind through audit (although if I apply soon to KPMG maybe I could get onto http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/05/cnmi5105.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox )What sort of work do accountants do aside from auditing companies? From what I’ve found out so far they seem to be very similar to consultants…?

Similiar in what sense...? Consultants consult, accountants audit....

I was told that senior accountants advise companies on how to run their business. I guess my point was surely there must be more to accounting than just audits and doing the books?

But... it's called "Audit". Does that not give it away? It's "audit"ing companies!

If you join in an audit department, then yes you will be an auditor - pretty much for 3 years during your training contract.If you join something like transaction services or even the consulting arm of big4, you will do a mixture of audit and what would usually be referred to as consulting depending on who you join. You mention KPMG for example. There many in advisory are actually studying for the ACA as well and don't just do audit, although that is a large part of what they do.