Where to Start When You’re Just Getting Into Finance and Accounting
Read Time: 7 Minutes
You want to work in finance. You’ve looked at job listings. And almost every single one says the same thing.
“Minimum one to two years of experience required.”
It’s one of the most frustrating things about trying to break into this profession. You’re ready to learn, you’re committed to building a career, but the door seems to be closed before you’ve even had the chance to knock.
Here’s the truth though: entry-level finance jobs that genuinely don’t require prior experience do exist in the UK. Quite a few of them, actually. The issue isn’t that opportunities aren’t out there. It’s that most people don’t know which roles to target, what employers are actually looking for, and how to position themselves as someone worth taking a chance on.
That’s what this article is about.
Understanding What “No Experience Required” Actually Means
Before we get into the specific roles, it’s worth understanding what employers mean when they say they’re open to candidates without experience.
They don’t mean they’re happy to hire someone who hasn’t thought about the profession at all. What they mean is that they’re willing to train the right person from scratch, provided that person comes with a genuine interest in the field, some evidence of relevant ability, and the kind of attitude that suggests they’ll take the opportunity seriously.
That’s an important distinction. It shifts the question from “what experience do I have?” to “How do I demonstrate that I’m worth investing in?” Those are very different problems, and the second one is far more solvable than most people realise.
Accounts Assistant
This is one of the most common entry points into finance and accounting in the UK, and for good reason. Accounts Assistant roles are designed to be learned on the job, and many employers actively prefer hiring someone they can train to their own processes rather than someone who’s picked up habits elsewhere.
Day to day, the role typically involves processing invoices, reconciling accounts, supporting with payments, and helping maintain accurate financial records. It’s structured, process-driven work that develops the kind of foundational knowledge that everything else in accounting is built on.
Smaller businesses and growing SMEs are often the best places to find genuine Accounts Assistant opportunities for people without experience, partly because they tend to have more flexibility in their hiring decisions, and partly because in a smaller team you’re likely to pick up a broader range of skills more quickly than in a large corporate environment.
Trainee Accountant and Finance Apprenticeships
Trainee accountant roles and finance apprenticeships are specifically designed for people starting from scratch, and in the UK there are a significant number of them available at any given time. Many are structured around AAT, which means you gain a professional qualification while earning, with the employer typically covering study costs as part of the package.
This is one of the most sensible routes into the profession for school leavers and those who don’t want to take the university route. Rather than spending three years studying before entering the workforce, you’re learning, earning, and qualifying at the same time. The practical exposure you gain in those first couple of years is something that no amount of classroom study can fully replicate.
Finance apprenticeships at Level 3 and Level 4 are widely available across the UK, including at some well-known employers, and they consistently represent some of the strongest entry points into a long-term accounting career.
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Clerk
These are roles that focus on a specific, well-defined part of the finance function managing what a business owes to its suppliers, or what customers owe to the business. Because the scope is narrower, employers are generally more willing to hire someone without prior experience, as the learning curve is manageable and the processes can be taught relatively quickly.
For someone new to finance, these roles offer a genuine opportunity to understand how money moves through a business, which is one of the most valuable pieces of commercial awareness you can develop early in a career. Once you understand that flow, other parts of finance start to make considerably more sense.
Payroll Administrator
Payroll is a consistently in-demand area that tends to fly under the radar for people looking to start in finance. It’s highly process-driven, requires strong attention to detail, and involves working with numbers and systems on a daily basis all of which are skills that translate well into broader accounting and finance roles down the line.
Many payroll roles in the UK are open to candidates without specific prior experience, particularly in smaller businesses, and some employers offer structured training programmes to get new starters up to speed quickly. If you’re organised, methodical, and comfortable working to fixed deadlines, payroll is worth taking seriously as a starting point.
Finance Administrator
Finance administrator roles sit at the crossroads between admin and finance, and for that reason they tend to be genuinely accessible to people without direct accounting experience. The work often includes maintaining records, processing documentation, supporting the finance team with reporting, and dealing with finance-related queries.
These roles are often how people discover which part of finance they’re most drawn to. You get enough exposure to see how different functions operate accounts, payroll, reporting without being locked into one specialism from day one. For someone who isn’t yet sure exactly where they want to go within finance, it’s a reasonable and often underrated starting point.
Junior Financial Analyst (Graduate Entry)
This one is slightly more competitive and often suited to recent graduates, but it’s worth including because there are genuine graduate-entry financial analyst roles in the UK that don’t require prior work experience. What they do tend to require is strong numerical ability, comfort with Excel, and evidence that you can work with data and draw conclusions from it.
If you’re a recent graduate with a relevant degree accounting, finance, economics, maths, or a related subject and you’re willing to put in the effort to build your Excel and data skills before applying, entry-level analyst roles are a realistic target. They tend to pay well relative to other starting points and offer a strong foundation for progression.
What Employers Are Actually Looking For
Across all of these roles, the thing that consistently separates candidates who get hired from those who don’t isn’t a long list of prior experience. It’s a combination of attitude, preparation, and the ability to communicate genuine interest in the work.
Employers at this level want to see that you understand what the role involves and why it appeals to you specifically. They want to know you’re reliable, that you pay attention to detail, and that you’re willing to learn. A candidate who walks in having done their research, who can speak clearly about why they want to work in finance and what they’ve done to prepare for it, will almost always outperform a candidate who simply sends a generic CV and hopes for the best.
Take Charlotte, for example, a school leaver who had no accounting experience but had completed a short bookkeeping course online, spent a few weeks volunteering to help a local charity with basic record-keeping, and had put together a clean, well-structured CV that clearly explained why she was interested in a career in finance. She secured an Accounts Assistant role with a local SME within eight weeks of starting her search. Not because she had experience, but because she made herself look like someone worth backing.
Building Towards Something Bigger
It’s worth being clear that none of these roles is a destination in itself. They’re starting points the foundation on which a career in finance is built.
Most people who begin as an Accounts Assistant or a Trainee Accountant and invest in their own development alongside the role, whether through AAT, ACCA, CIMA, or continued professional learning, find that progression comes relatively quickly. The finance profession rewards people who keep developing, and the distance between an entry-level role and a qualified, commercially valuable finance professional is far shorter than it can appear from the outside.
This is one of the things the Bridgeway Career Systemâ„¢ at Bridge Placement Group is built around. The idea that getting into finance is the beginning of a journey, not the end of one. Supporting people through that first step, and everything that follows it, is exactly what the platform is designed to do from learning and qualification support through to career development and employment opportunities.
The Bottom Line
Entry-level finance jobs without experience exist in the UK. The roles are real, the opportunities are genuine, and the profession is one that rewards commitment and continuous development in a way that very few others do.
The question isn’t whether the door is open. It’s whether you’re ready to walk through it.
Knowing which roles to target, understanding what employers are actually looking for, and taking the time to present yourself as someone serious about building a career in finance that’s what turns a job search from a frustrating cycle of rejections into something that actually moves forward.
The first role is always the hardest to get. After that, the path tends to open up.
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