Accountant - Crossover To Excel developer? How feasible?

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Hi All,

I'm after a bit of advice. I'm a qualified accountant by trade, gained in industry and commerce and not practice.

I have been a contractor for the last 10 years, and in the last few years my skills have taken me into blue chip companies, pretty much spending my entire time creating and developing models.

Obviously to do this, I consider myself highly competent in Excel and VBA, but there isn't much call for Accountant developer jobs, and each one I have landed as been for a finance role and they have then assigned me with the sole tasks of developing models once I have started and they understand my skill set a little better.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, rather than pitching myself in future as a Management Accountant/ Business Partner/ Finance analyst with really strong modelling abilities, I was wondering if there is a crossover to sell myself as a Excel Developer, with a strong IT focus with the accountancy side to back it up, rather than the other way around!

Can anyone advise on this? If so any ideas as to what the rates would be? I appreciate VBA isn't classed as a difficult language and that rates change up and down the country, but as I'm from a finance contractor background I''m just looking for a Jist...... Or does this market tend to be dominated by IT folk?

The issue with the accountancy route is, I'm competing with people who don't have this ability, but who are accountants, so rates are pushed down, so the one's who need to modelling side doing get a cheap deal by recruiting me in this way..............However, if I was to pitch myself first and foremost as a developer being a qualified accountant second, is this a possibility?

Cheers
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[MyUserName]

Are there many roles available for Excel VBA developers? I always thought of it as a secondary skill, much like you are employing it at the moment.

Is the issue that rates are dropping for you? Rates are being pushed down for most sectors TBH - have you seen roles being advertised for Excel developers which you could go for? If so, what rates were they offering?

If you want to do it then there is nothing stopping you from tweaking your cv and reselling yourself as an Excel Dev and just seeing what happens.

[kevpuk]

Well my area is generally BI/Access/Excel/VBA and so on, along with a fair bit of BA/PM work. I never qualified fully as an Accountant, but am/was about 2/3 part-qualified ACCA - this Accountancy 'background' has been a side-skillset I have been successfully able to trade on for many years, as well as a fair few auditing roles I have been in.

[northernladuk]

Do some research on the job boards and see if there are any roles that a) you want and if so b) you fit perfectly and have a solid demonstrable past in that field. You have to be pretty pragmatic. If you haven't done it or can't demonstrate it in your last few gigs it won't do. Am not saying write the gig off on that point but be aware if the next guy has that tick and you don't it is going to be tough.

If you can look like you have done that work and are an expert in your field then you will get gig's. If your analysis makes you look like a guy that thinks he knows it and could give that gig a shot but just needs a break then no it won't work IMO

[Baffle]

Are there many roles available for Excel VBA developers? I always thought of it as a secondary skill, much like you are employing it at the moment.

Is the issue that rates are dropping for you? Rates are being pushed down for most sectors TBH - have you seen roles being advertised for Excel developers which you could go for? If so, what rates were they offering?

If you want to do it then there is nothing stopping you from tweaking your cv and reselling yourself as an Excel Dev and just seeing what happens.

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

To be honest, I'm not sure, I'm sort of getting the idea from here:-

Excel VBA Developer Contracts, Contractor Rates for an Excel VBA Developer

The issue isn't so much that rates are being pushed down on the modelling side of things, it's that roles are being packaged as a generic finance title, with a small modelling project to do etc........But then you end up pretty much re-designing/creating the majority of models they are using once they see the results of the first one...........Meanwhile you're still classed as an accountant in X role so the day rate is X amount........

I'm not sure on the call for the link above, or the accuracy of day rates etc, but they are considerable higher than what I am doing, and the modelling/VBA side of things is the direction I have moved into and what I see myself doing going forward, so just trying to evaluate the best direction really...........

There are various alternative routes, such as business analyst, financial modeller etc which there would be a crossover into, so I'm going to do a bit of research in this area, but I was just wondering from an IT contractors perspective, if people know of many Excel VBA developers. It seems maybe not from your response....

The other alternative I suppose would be to package up my accountancy and Modelling skills and sell myself as an 'Excel Consultant', but again, it's quite a generic title so not sure where to pitch for work in this line of business.

Suppose I will just have to try a few options and see where it leads me

[Baffle]

Do some research on the job boards and see if there are any roles that a) you want and if so b) you fit perfectly and have a solid demonstrable past in that field. You have to be pretty pragmatic. If you haven't done it or can't demonstrate it in your last few gigs it won't do. Am not saying write the gig off on that point but be aware if the next guy has that tick and you don't it is going to be tough.

If you can look like you have done that work and are an expert in your field then you will get gig's. If your analysis makes you look like a guy that thinks he knows it and could give that gig a shot but just needs a break then no it won't work IMO

Thanks for the response.

Makes perfect sense, as with all fields of work, companies don't like paying interim rates to 'give someone a shot'. I'll start doing some research and see what's about.

Cheers

[BlasterBates]

I typed in Excel in jobserve. Loads of contracts. I don´s see any problem. On your profile, just declare yourself as an Excel VBA expert and apply for contracts where you have the right experience.

[Scrag Meister]

VB/VBA/SQL is my main skillset, with a C# chaser.

There are VBA roles out there.

The count of Excel VBA devs on itjobswatch is quite low at the mo, there used to be up in the 70s, now its < 20.

Keep looking they are out there.

[Baffle]

I typed in Excel in jobserve. Loads of contracts. I don´s see any problem. On your profile, just declare yourself as an Excel VBA expert and apply for contracts where you have the right experience.

Thanks, I've just a had a quick look and sounds promising, many thanks for the heads up

[Baffle]

VB/VBA/SQL is my main skillset, with a C# chaser.

There are VBA roles out there.

The count of Excel VBA devs on itjobswatch is quite low at the mo, there used to be up in the 70s, now its < 20.

Keep looking they are out there.

Hi Scrag Meister,

That's good to know, especially coming from someone who has experience in the field...........

Thanks for taking the time to respond, much appreciated.

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