“Fred Brown almost went into banking, like his father. At 16 and desperate to leave school, he did not know what to do for a living. He did want to see the world, though, and his father had another idea: “Become an accountant,” he said. “You can take that anywhere.”
It was sound advice. After qualifying with a small West End firm, he took a three-year contract with Deloitte Plender Griffiths (as it was then) in Lima. He ended up staying more than a decade, bar 15 months in Houston, Texas, and then spent most of his career in Ecuador. He opened Deloitte’s Quito office there and during 35 years in the country went on to become the managing partner.
Today he is back in Lima, with his Peruvian wife and two daughters, and is chief financial officer of a tour operator he helped to set up that offers luxury cruises on the Amazon. He cannot imagine going back to the UK. “I won’t say I’m a stranger when I visit, but I’m definitely a tourist,” he says.
And while much has changed in accountancy since Brown started out in the 1960s, the opportunities for travel remain. “We work with a huge number of global clients and they expect people to have international experience and the ability to work in different cultures,” says Keith Dugdale, director of global recruitment at KPMG. “We talk about developing a global mindset.”
Meanwhile, the accountants PKF, who have the widest geographical presence outside the Big Four, have a website for staff seeking opportunities to be posted overseas. UK accountants who want to travel have two big advantages. The first is the language. As Mark Protherough, a director at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), puts it: “English is still the language of accountancy.” It is what international accounting standards are written in.
Second, UK qualifications travel well. The institute has reciprocal agreements with accountancy bodies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Hong Kong, so its members can be recognised there without taking local exams, but UK qualifications are respected worldwide. The Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) qualification is the most widely accepted, but you can also travel with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
“Most locations actively want British qualified accountants,” says Karen Lindsay, director of KLW International, a recruiter specialising in overseas appointments. That is particularly true of emerging markets, which can struggle to find enough qualified accountants at home.
These provide a steady stream of jobs for newly qualified accountants, many of them British. At CML, an offshore and temping agency in Grand Cayman, Britons make up about half of those placed. Provided that they are willing to be flexible and patient, it is fairly easy for newly qualified accountants to find work, according to the company’s chief executive, Steve McIntosh.
For an entry-level role, candidates can expect a salary of about £58,000 on a net basis, he reckons. However, the real selling point is one that money cannot buy. “For most young Britons, a better lifestyle is guaranteed,” he says. “I personally guarantee that you will never commute with your face in someone’s armpit.”
It is not for everyone, of course. For a start, some areas, where regulation is still handled at a national level, offer fewer opportunities for travel.
Additionally, having to start from scratch in a different country on a series of temporary appointments, which account for many of the opportunities, has its challenges. Catherine Wiggins at PKF, for instance, spent six months in its Boston office — an incredible experience, she says, but not one that she is likely to repeat. That is partly because she is now specialising in tax but partly because she would be reluctant to uproot every six months or so. However, most people who commit to international placements rarely look back.
In Peru, meanwhile, Brown says it is impossible to know if he would have had the same opportunities had he stayed in the UK — or become a banker. “But I do know one thing,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t have ended up on the Amazon.”
“
