The UK accounting profession
Posted by Christie Malry on February 14, 2010 at 3:13 pm
When people talk about accountants, one might think that all accountants are the same. Yet, the UK accountancy profession, uniquely, has several professional bodies in competition with each other.
There are six main accountancy bodies in the UK:
- The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
- The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)
- The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)
- The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)
- The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS)
- Chartered Accountants Ireland
The fierce competition between these bodies, in particular between the ICAEW and ACCA, has led to some features that are particular to the UK profession. In many parts of the world, accountants are synonymous with auditors. Not in the UK - our accountants have a long history of involvement with company management and public financial discipline. Also, membership of one of our institutes is not dependent on remaining in public audit - accountants can remain a member of a UK institute after leaving audit.
There are other, smaller, professional bodies in the UK. I'll get round to all the main bodies one by one, as well as the tiddlers, in future posts.
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