Accounting and Finance (with Professional Practice Year)

The business world requires accounting and finance professionals capable of making informed, strategic choices that empower businesses in a competitive market. This course equips you with the skills to make such decisions across a range of business environments. You gain the understanding and skills to record, interpret and communicate financial information, applying the latest International Financial Reporting standards. In a simulated business environment, you explore aspects of business practice, from regulatory and risk management to the operation and vulnerabilities of financial markets.

Professional Practice Year
Take your course over four years and include a Professional Practice Year after your second year of studies. It is an opportunity to apply your learning in the workplace while enhancing your knowledge and skills through fee-free paid practice. It also builds your CV and industry contacts with many students progressing to employment within their practice-year organisation or institution.

Course Accreditation/Industry Endorsement

• This course is accredited by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA); Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT); The Association of International Accountants (AIA); and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

• Completing relevant accredited course units makes you eligible for exemptions in ACCA, AAT, AIA and CIMA examinations.

Facilities and Specialist Equipment

• New business analytics suite to support data analytics, 'big-data', data mining, SEO and other management skills needed in today's workplace.

• Access to industry-standard applications and platforms to aid practical learning including Sage, Refinitiv Workspace and econometrics software STATA.

• Access to digital learning platforms and knowledge tools.

• A well-equipped trading room to enhance your financial skills.

• Gain competencies in key digital skills such as Excel through SIMnet, our Microsoft Office training platform.

Partnerships and Collaborations

• Our students benefit from our collaboration with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Your Student Experience

• Completing relevant, accredited course make you eligible for exemptions from: the first nine papers of the ACCA professional exams (the maximum ACCA exemptions available at undergraduate level); seven out of 15 of the CIMA exams; AIA’s Professional level 1 paper; full exemption from AAT L4.

• Benefit from our connections with top finance and accounting firms, including Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, PwC, and Deloitte, along with professional bodies like the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

• With our state-of-the-art trading room, experience what it’s like to be on the trading-room floor, reacting to live ‘stock-market’ data and building investment portfolios using data on listed companies from around the world.

• Learn from masterclasses from industry experts, benefitting from their experience and keeping at the leading edge in the accounting and finance field.

• Enhance your student experience with field trips to major financial institutions such as the Bank of England as well as industry networking events.

• Acquire transferable, professional skills in communication, problem-solving, teamwork and leadership.

• Working with the University’s Research and Innovation Service (RIS), get involved in solving real-life problems for businesses, from start-ups to established corporations, through our business development packages.

• Companies that have benefited from our business development packages include Vauxhall; Drax Technology; the Royal Air Force; Luton and Bedford Borough Councils; and a range of national charities.