The role of an Auditor
Mission: to understand what an auditor does
There are certain professions that from the outside can seem like something of a dark art. To many people who have no experience of what we do here at the Audit Commission, or indeed of accountancy and business related disciplines (many of our graduates didn’t before they joined), we can understand why auditing might be one of them. So, we thought we’d shed a bit of light on exactly what our auditors do, to give you an insight into what a career with us involves.
Contrary to popular belief, auditing isn’t just number crunching. Far from it. While a good level of numeracy is really important, a lot of the time you’ll be out on site, meeting people and gathering information. This will involve interviewing client staff to gain an understanding of their systems, carrying out analysis, reviews and sometimes fraud inspections. You’ll also do some data quality work – going out and checking performance indicators. A simple example might be testing pedestrian crossings to see if they are blind friendly... the list goes on – because our responsibilities are as varied as our clients.
Having doubled the number of places on offer, we’re creating a national pool of audit talent right across the country. So when you join us, you’ll be assigned to a specific geographic location. You’ll still work in small, diverse and friendly teams, full of people from lots of different backgrounds and you’ll get plenty of responsibility and autonomy early on, allowing you to be a master of your own time. And master is the key word here. Ultimately, you’ll run your own projects as you progress through the organisation. Perhaps the best bit is knowing the end result which all your hard work is feeding into: real, tangible changes to people’s lives. The lives of you and everyone you know. Not many careers can offer that.
See our trainee profiles and ‘day in the life’ to get a real taste of life at the Commission
