Accountancy firm PKF Francis Clark to create 80 new trainee jobs across the South West

By Peter Davison

25 October 2023

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PKF Francis Clark trainees

South West accountancy firm PKF Francis Clark is to create 80 new jobs for graduates, school leavers and career changers next year.

The roles will be based at the firm’s offices in Bristol and Salisbury, as well as Exeter, Plymouth, Poole, Taunton, Torquay and Truro.

There will be 11 openings in Bristol and five at the Salisbury office.

Applications are now open for 80 apprenticeship vacancies, starting in January and August 2024. Candidates can choose between accountancy and tax pathways, with qualifications tailored to both graduates and non-graduates.

It comes after 63 new apprentices joined PKF Francis Clark this year. In addition, the firm expects to recruit around 110 experienced hires over the next 12 months.

Chief people officer Amy Taylor said: “Alongside our ongoing recruitment of experienced professionals as we continue to grow, we’re stepping up our early careers recruitment for next year to ensure we have the capacity and skills to serve our growing client base in the future. Our latest recruits have settled in well and are already making an impact, and we’re delighted to be able to offer even more career opportunities to school leavers, graduates and career changers across our region next year.

“Applications so far are well ahead of this time last year, reflecting our growing reputation as a great place to work and the efforts our recruitment team are putting into engaging with schools, colleges and universities.”

PKF Francis Clark is ranked among England’s Top 100 Apprenticeship employers, claiming 28th place on this year’s list produced by the Department of Education and High Fliers Research.

Since being certified as a Great Place to Work, this year the firm has also been ranked among the UK’s Best Workplaces for Wellbeing, Best Workplaces for Women and Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services.

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PKF Francis Clark offers three main entry routes for accountancy and tax trainees:

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) apprenticeship is aimed at non-graduates and combines learning on the job with attending college one day a week, leading to a level 3 or 4 qualification.
Trainees who have a degree can work towards a level 7 qualification from the Association of Chartered Accountants (ACA), combining on-the-job learning from experienced colleagues with studying via a leading professional training provider.
The firm also has a specialist tax pathway for apprentices to achieve the level 7 Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) qualification.

Year 11, 12 and 13 students – and their parents or guardians – will be able to find out more about AAT accountancy apprenticeships at open evenings hosted by PKF Francis Clark in Salisbury on Wednesday, November 29 and Bristol on Thursday, November 30.

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.