Newly Qualified in Tax?

Your hard work and determination have paid off in becoming a qualified tax professional, opening up a wealth of opportunity for you.

Pure’s consultants are the preeminent experts in tax recruitment and best qualified to offer you impartial career advice and to help you to unlock your career’s potential.

We place more tax professionals than anyone else.

Stay or move?

Historically, many professionals change employer upon qualification in CTA or ACA. The reasons for this vary between individuals but the leading reason tends to simply be the desire for a new challenge. At this stage of the tax career most professionals have been with their employers for around three years and likely have not been employed anywhere else if they joined on a graduate programme. The curiosity of what other employers can offer is a key factor and having the professional qualification behind you can feel empowering as your position in the market becomes very attractive to employers.

You may of course wish to stay with your current employer if you feel that your progression to the next level will be swift. The best move is to seek advice about what the market is like at the time of becoming qualified, what options you have and what the outlook is like for the future. Pure occupies an enviable position in the market of having the largest and most successful Tax Recruitment team in the UK. With the wealth of experience on our side, we can give you the complete picture (both in professional services and in-house) without pressure to commit to any process.

Practice versus In-house

Choosing whether to stay in professional services or move in-house for the first time can be tricky. In-house roles are highly sought-after as the end goal for many tax professionals. No time-sheets, better working hours and higher financial reward make for an attractive proposition. Whether or not it is the right move for you depends mainly on three things: your specialism and level of experience and your preference on the type of environment you work in.

Specialism & Level: There are many opportunities at all levels to move in-house if you specialise in Corporate Taxes, Transfer Pricing or VAT. When it comes to more niche areas such as Employment Taxes, Expatriate Taxes, Executive Remuneration and Partnership Taxation, then opportunities are scarce with very high competition for them. Here you are most likely to make the move in-house at the Manager level when your experience can prepare you for the opportunity as the roles tend to be either stand-alone or part of small teams.

Environment: Industry opportunities are not right for everyone. It can be great experience as you will be better informed on the sort of challenges you can face in-house when it comes to internal politics, more red-tape in the decision making process and a less client facing environment. But it is these challenges that can be a little frustrating to deal with. If you are patient and can rise to them and help drive changes then the challenge pays off. However, if you enjoy the professional client facing and business development aspects of tax practice then this could be a better fit. Find a firm that will allow you to broaden your technical experience into a variety of areas within your specialism. And remember that each firm and each team within it is unique (e.g. each Big 4 firm is very different from the other), so be careful not to generalise and close off your options as a result.

Newly-Qualified Level: If you are making the move at the newly-qualified level, you will need to choose the position carefully to make sure the team is large enough for you to progress in, the team has high visibility within the wider business to make the work more progressive and interesting and that you keep good relationships in the practice market to allow you to come back should you not enjoy the in-house environment or if the market turns and your role becomes redundant.

What are you worth?

Depending on academic record, tax qualification, geographic location, industry and your desired specialisation, your remuneration will be affected. It is important to state that at this stage in your career, non-monetary benefits such as responsibility, promotion prospects and a company’s/industry’s potential, should not be discounted in order to achieve the biggest jump in salary.

As an example, what is realistically achievable in London and the South East is outlined below:

Big 4/ Top 10 Firms	Top 50 and Boutiques	FTSE 100	FTSE 250	Financial Services	Temp/ Contract
£40,000 - £45,000	£35,000 - £42,000	£40,000 - £50,000	£40,000 - £45,000	£45,000 - £50,000	£25-£35 per hour

If you would like to find out what you can achieve based in your unique situation and circumstance, please fill out our Tailor Made Salary Survey:

Your career’s our passion

We are here to give you free, no obligation, bespoke advice based on your specific circumstances. Our consultants take great pride in imparting our knowledge and expertise of tax recruitment to our candidates.

Please contact us on 020 7429 4400 for a discussion on your career and aspirations.