Audit Apprenticeship Programme – Ernst & Young – September 2025 intake

- Posted by Fearghal Quinn
- Posted in Careers Blog
Location: Belfast
Programme length: 4 years
Professional Qualification: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
Salary: Competitive
Start date: September 2025
Help businesses publish reliable financial accounts as you progress towards becoming a chartered accountant.
Programme overview
As external auditors, we help companies publish true and fair financial accounts others can rely on – so we can build a better working world.
What you will be doing
Getting to understand our clients, their businesses and how they work.
Testing business controls to ensure they work how they’re supposed to.
Performing an independent assessment of financial information to ensure financial statements are true and fair.
Working as part of the audit team on a hybrid working basis spending time on client sites, in the office and at home.
You’ll have a dedicated careers counsellor throughout the programme to help you during busier seasons, development and learning.
Eligibility for applying
You’ll need a minimum of Level 4/C GCSE (or equivalent) in English Language and Maths; and to have completed three A-levels/5 Highers (or equivalent) by the time the programme starts.
It is therefore important that you provide us with your top three obtained or accurately predicated A-levels (or equivalent) as these will be verified and considered as part of the offer process should you be successful. Any drop in grades could jeopardise your offer of employment.
Removing barriers
We’re proud of our heritage on driving diversity and social mobility across the professional services industry, and in 2016, we removed the requirement to have minimum UCAS points or a degree classification to make an application to EY. We are passionate about giving candidates a fair and consistent recruitment process and are proud of our long-standing partnership with RARE who help us assess applications using contextual recruitment. And, whilst some academic qualifications will still be considered (check programme information for more details), it’s no longer a barrier. We also firmly believe that every candidate should have the opportunity to demonstrate their potential in our selection process which is why we use our leading EY Strengths Framework that focuses on your individual strengths.