CONEL’s Accounting Academy offers an opportunity to gain information, advice and guidance on the world of Accounting

CONEL’s Accounting Apprenticeships and Careers Conference.

The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (CONEL) hosted the Accounting Apprenticeship and Careers conference in association with Leadership through Sport & Business, The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), PQ magazine and Tottenham Hotspur Foundation. This event took place on 1 May 2019.

The event was a great success and offered attendees an opportunity to gain information, advice and guidance on the world of Accounting.

With financial and accounting technicians earning on average £47,320 per year, working in accountancy is a great career option for a lot of people. You don’t have to be an expert with figures to start on your study journey. The accountancy workforce in the UK is projected to grow by more than 5% over the next 5 years. So there should be more job opportunities for trainee accountants.

CONEL works closely with Leadership through Sport & Business (LTSB). LTSB is a charity that gives bright, ambitious young people who face disadvantage an opportunity in accounting and finance careers.

Deputy CEO at Leadership Through Sport & Business, Pete Ward, said,

“As part of our 2015 cohort we had a great young woman called Bola. She started off being unable to get unpaid work experience because she didn’t have any work experience already. CONEL and LTSB worked together and found her a position at BKL, an accountancy firm based in Finchley. Bola then moved on from working at BKL to Santander and was nominated for a rising star award in the Women in Finance awards.

“As a charity we work with young people to achieve a future they don’t have a language for. Careers fairs like this, which have both industry understanding and representation from various chartered accountancy boards, means that young people are better equipped to describe their future and therefore achieve it.”

Student, Megan-Rose Caswell is studying Level 3 Accounting Apprenticeship and working for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Which means that she studies at CONEL one day each week and works at Tottenham Hotspur on the other four days. She said, “CONEL is great because I look forward to being with people of a similar age and at a similar level as myself. At work, I am with people a lot older and a lot more experienced, whereas in my college class everyone is working at the same pace and is in the same boat as me.”

Megan works in Tottenham Hotspur’s Accounts Payable department, processing payments to suppliers and contractors. Spurs have recently finished an £850 million, 3½ -year regeneration project, which has delivered a brand new 62,062-seat stadium for the club. Megan has been involved in processing some of the payments to the stadium’s contractors.

Nazia Khaliq, who works for CONEL to support apprentices being recruited and placed, said,

“CONEL’s Accounting Academy has been running since 2010. The academy has produced some amazing accounting professionals. Past students are now working at a range of companies like BKL, Grant Thornton, Arc Insolvency, SmallBiz Accountancy Ltd and SmartSec Solutions.

“One of our success stories, Akash Ruparelia, started on the  Pre-Apprenticeship in Accounting programme at CONEL in 2012. In February 2019, Akash was the first student from the LTSB programme to qualify as a chartered accountant.”