School/college leavers

Are you about to leave school or college? Are you interested in a rewarding and successful career in business?

CIMA can offer you an alternative qualification to university that is highly valued by employers worldwide.

Our qualification will give you a great opportunity to learn while you earn. All you need is a real desire to succeed in business, and competence in mathematics and the English language. 

What careers do management accountants have?

People who go straight from school into the workplace and start studying our qualification develop very successful careers in many areas of business. CIMA members around the world work in jobs like chief executive officers, managing directors, finance directors and management consultants.

You can read more about CIMA and school leavers here (PDF 45KB).

How to start CIMA straight from school or college

You’ll start with our entry-level qualification - the CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting. This certificate will help you build your business and financial knowledge. The certificate is a recognised qualification in its own right as an introduction into the world of finance. It can also be a stepping stone to the CIMA professional qualification.
 
There are five key subject areas in the CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting: 

• Fundamentals of Management Accounting
• Fundamentals of Financial Accounting
• Fundamentals of Business Mathematics
• Fundamentals of Business Economics 
• Fundamentals of Ethics, Corporate Governance and Business Law

For full details of the syllabus, see our CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting page.

How to register as a student

'I always had the intention of going through university and then starting a career in business. Once I was aware of what CIMA offered, I realised I didn’t need the degree…youth isn’t a barrier to business success. That’s what the letters say.' Jonathan Powers, Management Accountant, Nestle

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