KPMG Ireland apprenticeship offers work, degree and ACA route

KPMG Ireland’s Get Set Degree Apprenticeship lets school leavers start work after A Levels, earn a BSc (Hons) in Accounting with Management from Ulster University, and move toward the ACA while building client exposure from day one. The route brings them into the firm before the conventional campus-first path begins.

A different entry point into a Big 4 career

The programme is built for students who want to begin earning and learning immediately, rather than spending three or four years in full-time university before applying for a graduate role. KPMG frames the route as GO, LEARN, ADVANCE, mapping the steps from work to degree study to professional progression. Get Set creates a parallel entry into the accounting pipeline for people who may never have seen themselves on the graduate track.

The degree element comes from Ulster University, which lists Accounting with Management as a degree-apprenticeship option in Belfast. It is a live work-study route with a named degree, a named qualification and a named location. For KPMG, it creates a route into audit and tax before candidates are locked into the traditional graduate marketplace, where competition for the same pool of candidates is intense.

How the work-study model actually runs

The day-to-day structure is more detailed than a standard student placement. Apprentices get responsibility and client exposure from the start, which means they are not just sitting on the edge of teams waiting for work to come to them. They are also supported by both a performance manager and a buddy, a pairing aimed at reducing the usual first-job shock that can make early professional life feel sink-or-swim.

During university semesters, apprentices get one day a week off for study, then later receive additional study leave when they move into professional exams. KPMG’s Business School provides bespoke training for student-programme participants, and KPMG says it invests €19.8 million annually in training and development for employees.

Why this matters to KPMG’s talent pipeline

KPMG says it hires 300 graduates each year in Ireland and has 85 partners and 2,500 people across the country, which puts the apprenticeship in the context of a substantial professional-services machine rather than a niche social mobility initiative. KPMG also describes itself as Ireland’s leading audit practice by market share and says its Tax Consulting practice is the largest in Ireland, so every new entry route has to serve a wide base of client work, not a single team or office.

If a firm with that footprint can bring in school leavers, train them through a degree, and move them toward ACA, it broadens the profession’s pipeline without waiting for the usual graduate funnel to deliver. KPMG says its student programmes are designed to create future business leaders while pursuing ACA. The route is meant to feed the long-term partnership track, not just fill junior seats for a year or two.

What apprentices learn in audit and tax

The programme is not limited to one technical lane. In audit, apprentices learn how businesses operate, how they pursue commercial opportunities, how they manage risk, and how those factors appear in annual financial statements. Technology is changing audit work, so early-career training is no longer just about ticking and tying, but about learning how to use technology to deliver sharper insight.

Tax gives the programme a second route into the firm’s operating model. Apprentices can experience both advisory and compliance work, with compliance focused on returns and grounded in tax rates, rules and exemptions. The split mirrors the way tax teams actually work, moving between advisory questions that shape decisions and compliance deadlines that shape the calendar. Audit or Tax apprentices can finish with the same qualifications as graduate colleagues, plus five years of hands-on experience, which gives the route real parity with the standard graduate entry point.

How KPMG recruits for it

KPMG runs insight events in November and December for students interested in the Get Set Apprenticeship programme. A CCEA-hosted 2023 information PDF lists the GO, LEARN, ADVANCE framing alongside student insight and parent information sessions on 16 November and 1 December. That suggests a recruitment rhythm built around school-leaver decision points, not a one-off campaign.