Accountancy students should stay north of the border to enhance their employment prospects
Employment statistics show that those who graduate in accountancy in Scotland are more likely to get a job if they stay close to home.
The unemployment rate for 2011's Scottish accountancy graduates, at 6%, was about half that of accountancy graduates across the UK as a whole (which stood at 11.5%) according to the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU). Among their English counterparts the unemployment rate was 13%.
What’s more, 90% of those who graduated in Scotland stayed to work north of the border, with most getting jobs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and South Lanarkshire, in that order. Few moved down south.
"More Scottish accountancy graduates went to work in the Highlands than in The City," says HECSU deputy director of research Charlie Ball.
Aberdeen has also emerged as rival to Edinburgh in terms of accountancy graduate recruitment. "The oil and gas industry has meant that Aberdeen is now probably the fastest-growing graduate jobs market in the UK," says Ball.
In the list of UK cities that recruited the most new graduates in 2011, Glasgow came third, after Birmingham and London, and Edinburgh fourth. Aberdeen was the next Scottish city in the list, at number 11.
The majority of 2011's Scottish accountancy graduates got jobs in the field, although others went into financial services. A third started in non-graduates roles, most commonly as accounts clerks, with reasonable expectations of eventual promotion to graduate level work.
Linda Murdoch, deputy director of the careers team at the University of Glasgow says: "Most of our graduates who went into accountancy and financial services joined graduate schemes at big companies such as PwC and Morgan Stanley."
Companies come on to the campus to talk to students about CVs, applications forms, interview skills and how to make themselves stand out from other candidates. "We also have an internship programme that works with about 200 companies, many of which are in financial services," says Murdoch.
The overall message, says Ball, is: "Accountancy graduates in Scotland have no need to move south of the border to get work. The class of 2011 stayed at home - more took jobs in Falkirk than in the City."
Meanwhile exactly 500 graduates from Scottish institutions went on to get jobs in the financial services industry in Scotland, according to HECSU figures.
Of those entering financial services, 77% got jobs in Scotland, 13% in London and the rest elsewhere. Top destinations were Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, South Lanarkshire and Dundee.
One in five new entrants to financial services in Scotland had a Masters degree, most commonly in business studies, finance or HR. Among the first degree entrants one in eight has graduated in business studies, but no other subjects stood out (excluding the 9% who were accountancy graduates). Degrees ranged over 78 different subjects including nursing sociology, forensic science, geology and media studies, bearing out claims by banks and financial services companies that they welcome graduates of all disciplines.
Most – 88% – were in full-time jobs, while those that were not were probably financial services contractors, says Ball. Almost none were doing unpaid internships six months after graduating.
Once again, the message is that Scottish graduates need not go to London to get jobs in financial services.
"The graduate jobs market in Scotland is pretty flat but with an unemployment rate of 6.3% among all graduate disciplines, compared to an overall UK rate of 8.6%, the big Scottish cities have got more the their fair share of jobs," says Ball.
