With accountancy skills more in demand than ever before, the author examines the broad range of career options open to accountants today, ranging from City firms to charities, schools, or hospitals. In the GUARDIAN CAREERS GUIDE series.

Traditionally seen as one of the least exciting but safest career areas accountants now find that the world is their oyster -- their skills being required in all businesses from the City to charities, schools to hospitals. The slow-moving, pen and ink ledgers have gone, and the only connection with the past is that accountancy for those who are successful remains a very well paid profession. It has also become a lot more fun, as accountants find their skills required across a wider range of organisations than ever before. This allows more opportunity to specialise -- for instance it would be possible to concentrate solely on the requirements of the health service, whether for a GP fundholding practice of an opted out hospital or a regional authority. Accountancy disciplines are required there as much as in the most competitive of corporate tigers. That leaves an enviable range of options from working for a professional partnership to climbing the corporate ladder, to working in the public sector to self-employment. This book will explain all of them.