The market for training contracts for the professions such as law and accountancy has been competitive for some years, particularly in law where there are thousands of graduates who have paid thousands of pounds to go through Law School and then end up without a training contract. Many end up in paralegal limbo, hoping for a training contract some time in the future. We also know that the job market generally for young people is harder than at any time in living memory.
Just to evidence how difficult the market is, the top accountancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers today revealed that it anticipates receiving up to 30,000 applications for the 1,200 training contracts on offer, so a less than 1 in 25 chance of succeeding for graduates.
The one piece of positive news for accountants, as opposed to lawyers, where the job market is not so good, is that the demand for qualified accountants seems to have remained fairly good, although this in turn could change as the ongoing economic turmoil takes it’s toll.
The suggestion that the job market for qualified and experienced accountants remains quite good comes from the large recruitment company, Reed. It publishes a monthly employment index, which makes very interesting reading and which can be found here.
Graduates would be well advised to carefully look at all the available data and there has never been a more important time to do due diligence on careers and career prospects, certainly if the legal sector is anything to go by. frankly, whilst law is an interesting career, for the most part it is far from the safe, stable and guaranteed well paid career it once was.