I saw a recent salary stating an average accountants salary was 64K with a 11K bonus.
Most Accountants Salary seem to be around the 45K mark and no bonus. I know it depends on where you live and there would be some regional variation but perhaps no more than 10K between London and other parts of the country ?
There seems a widespread perception that accountants earn a lot of money some do but most don't even when qualified with several years experience behind them. There was quite a lot of media coverage on accountants salary and was even mentioned in some national newspapers.
Would be interested in your views
Replies (17)
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the definition of "accountant" is just too wide for the figure to have any great significance.
is it -
accountant in practice (tax or audit or general practice) , industry (family business, ftse 100 company) , qualified, unqualified?
more generally though - i would have thought that if it was an employee aged 40 in GP , the figure seems a little high.
accountancy age jobs
The accountancy age job sites stratifies positions advertised in £10K increments. Yo can see the spread of jobs advertised in each band.
I think you are correct, and would place £64K as well above average in terms of advertised postitions.
Hmph
I was 'promised' a starting salary of £16,000 on graduation; it actually took me 4 years to get to that salary (by which time I should add I was ACCA qualified).
Ok, so I'm a tad of a pushover, but I'm far from alone (I've worked at places where the top managers were on £30k and the bottom rung (ranging from school leavers to AAT/part qualifieds) earned minimum wage to £12k.
Lucky you!
Well I only get £7.5k salary and no bonus so I feel really underpaid now!
£12 more than me!
Kent and Flash
Give yourselves a payrise. I earn c £633 per month, ie £7600. Yes my employer will have to pay a small amount of ers NIC but no ees nic, so it is still worthwhile. (sad to say I have done the sums).
And no, I don't do this for most of my clients because telling them all to pay a few £ of ers NIC in March would be too tedious, so unless they have other staff who have paye and nic deductions, I put them on £7488.
Leave no stone unturned...
Give yourselves a payrise. I earn c £633 per month, ie £7600. Yes my employer will have to pay a small amount of ers NIC but no ees nic, so it is still worthwhile. (sad to say I have done the sums).
Well done TH!
I'm ok, manage to boost my income with rental income from renting part of my home to the business and having a generous employer who pays 45p for ALL business mileage.
I also get a decent subsistence allowance when visiting clients :)
I started on £3,250 ....
28 years ago so I thing I've done well to more than double that now! I can still remember the day I got a £11,500 pay increase in my industry job ...1999 .. the dot.com bubble would surely never burst ... doh!!!!
Well I started on ...
... £260 pa.
Mind you, I was straight from school and it was quite some time ago.
And I had to pay 9/- per week (45p to you youngsters) for National Insurance.
Getting back to the OP
@sash100 - if you are a qualified accountant running your own practice as a sole practitioner with either no staff, 1/2 staff and a full workload, then a remuneration package equivalent to the net pay you would receive with a £75k salary is very achievable.
Even if you only receive a £7,488 salary :)
My wife has been recruiting accountants recently ...
for an international financial accounting role based down here on the isle of wight. I have helped review CV's and I would say that most were in the £60 - £80k band.
Realistic in some situations ....
@sash100
Don't know about the bonus but £60K + is not unreasonable for someone (accountant) working in London for one of the big 5
Was getting £65K + car etc. in 1998 when working for one of these firms years ago - so what would that be if you bring it up to date for 2013?
World of difference between own practice, industry & the big 5 - also massive differential in charge out rates - don't forget partners in these firms are £4/500K +
well..
well I seem to be moving backwards!
I hit a peak in 2008 when I was FD for a small listed media group and I was on more than the discussed figure of £75k then (at the age of 28!), but then in my next role I had to take a step backwards and dropped my salary by 20% to get a decent role (essentially I was overpaid in the previous role). And now I am running my own practice I can't imagine getting back up to these figures for many years, if at all!
to be fair if I was staying in industry, once you have 5+ years experience in FC / FD roles you should be going for £75k + if not more and once you get to that level it's all up for negotiation really...
RM