I know it depends on personal performance and the individual, but is doing ACA training in Big Four Audit considered a strong path to ending up in consultancy? Why or why not?

The connection is tenuous at best. The "ACA route to consultancy" is like the "M6 Northbound to Singapore"ACA is a lovely qualification, and the M6 Northbound is a lovely road. However, neither leads to the stated destinations: ACA leads to Audit, and the M6 leads to Scotland. Audit has the same first letter as Advisory and Scotland has the same first letter as Sydney, both of which are in the right hemisphere, but still far-distant from the stated destination.After reaching the end of the M6 North, you could take the A74(M) to Glasgow and get a flight to Singapore. Similarly, after ACA, you could take an MBA and go into consultancy. However, even if you live as far north as Carlisle, it is quicker, cheaper and you have more choice if you get a flight from Manchester. Similarly, there are quicker, cheaper and better routes into an MBA consulting career.

Haha I like that one. Good answer!p.s. liking the quality wit rather than some of the direct put-downs on this forum - much more constructive! :-)

Why do ACA when you could learn to add value going foward with this MC BS?

I agree the post above was quite witty but - keeping to your travel analogy - to state that "ACA leads to audit" as a one way road is misleading. Many grads move out of the Big4 after doing their ACA into anything from private equity, financial advisory, commercial finance, corporate recovery services, the odd IB role, FDD etc...Admitedly all the above have a heavily financial slant, so more unlikely to be 'management consultancy' whatever that means...Not too long ago, it was quite often the case that good performing grads were then offered positions in the consultancy, business recovery and corporate finance wings of some of the big outfits. This is has been rarer in the last 5 to 10 years, yet I wouldn't rule out this practice making a come back...In my view you should separate the 2 things - the ACA and audit. If you can get into any of the other functions the big4 have (aside from audit) and do the ACA that would give you a lot wider prospects. In short, the ACA is an outstanding qualification with a lot more variety and potential prospects than most would expect. Audit can be very dry and a bit of a body shop for the first few years - especially if you're in London and get stuck on some massive multinational for months on end...

Agree with ACAer. Frankly if you do ACA (a good qual BTW) then can only see yourself in Audit afterwards, you wouldn't have made a good MC anyway.Sadly far too many in this industry fail to see the bigger picture, and lack the real experience of business. In a few years' time (post-ACA) if you can bring solid financial experience and a global perspective to the table, any worthwhile MC firm would be very interested IMHO.If you only see every business problems as having roots in audit, you'd end up staying there anyway. ACA is a very well recognised qualification (compare to MBA), what you do with it afterwards is up to you.

I will be doing ACA Audit for Banking & Capital Markets clients of the Big Four firm.My plan is to do that until I qualify, then spend some time in Transaction Services/Corporate Finance and then make my way into strategy consulting as an experienced hire, with lots of experience with Financial Services clients.I don't want to start off as a consultant in my first graduate job because IMO a graduate consultant trades off a very soft and woolly set of skills. I'd rather have the ACA as something meaty to fall back on.

I think there are different slants to this - and its not a case of yes/no...I have many friends that got ACA/CIMA/ICAS qualified at big 4 and went into consulting.I also think it depends on your current skill set - for example if you have no idea about buisness/finance, then its hard for you to be a good MC...or even be considered. Doing ACA etc helps you in this area.Im currently doing CIMA qualification - and although my consulting firm doesn't want to pay for it now, they see it as very valuable. Lastly, as everyhting, it depends what you do when you get there....if you do an ACA qual with MC as a possible target there after, then get on more advisory work...you don't have to do 100% audit to become qualified

The thing is that a lot of Big4 recruiters will give you the "Corporate Finance, Private Equity, Front-Office Investment Banking, etc." spiel, but when you look at the figures, very few ACA graduates ever managed this until the latest financial services bubble. Personally, I doubt it will be a long time before the market becomes so overheated again that recruiters again need to turn to ACA accountants.

There is still a trickle of people moving across to IB/PE from the big 4, although admittedly this is from Corp fin/restructuring.Even if the market wasn't taking on ACAs, you can move internally to CF/Res. get some experience in these areas and stand a good chance of moving across to a front office role

I've literally just had an epiphany over the last few days.Up until now, I was really dead set on working on Banking & Capital Markets clients whilst I do my ACA.And I still want to end up in strategic consulting in the long term. But I realised that I'm really not that bothered about working on Banking related clients because to be honest I would hate the thought of working in an investment bank, or private equity. Long hours yes, lots of money yes, time to spend that money? No. Anyone to spend that money with? No, because they deserted you while you gave you all to the IB.If I do end up working on Banking-related clients during my ACA training, fine. But I think it would be interesting to work on clients in Information, Communications and Entertainment and then go into consultancy with my niche based on that area.

ACA is a good route to get into F&PM style work.