Finance and management are the two main areas of the accountancy profession: financial accountants work within an accountancy practice, conduct audits and give advice on matters such as taxation, while management accountants are involved in financial planning and forecasting based on a company's accounts, or on finance acts, and work in industry.

A recent CIMA survey found that the average earnings for management accountants are £50,000; the average earnings for senior positions are £83,500. Newly qualified management accountants (in their first five years) earn around £35,000. Similar salaries are earned by financial accountants, with directors and partners sometimes earning in excess of £100,000.

The largely historical division between the two areas is becoming increasingly blurred and most accountants end up working in industry, says Tony White, divisional director of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

"Accountants are the cement that keeps businesses together. Once a company reaches a certain level it needs an accountant."

White rejects the notion that accountants do a dull job and says it is, in fact, varied and challenging: "People have an image of accountants shifting about bits of paper with numbers on them. That's a hangover from the past. These days it is all done by computers and, even at trainee level, an accountant's job is analytical and intellectually stimulating."

You need to be reasonably outgoing to be an accountant, says White, and you must enjoy working with people and take an interest in all areas of a company. "There are few places for introverts to hide. It's not a job where you can hide behind figures, communications skills are at least as important as numerical skills. Finance people have to have a finger on the pulse of every area of the company."

Accountants develops an indepth knowledge of all aspects of a business and, though they may start out exclusively in the accounts department, they are ideally placed to move into senior management positions.

"The kind of knowledge that accountants acquire is power - that's why so many of them end up running the show."

Accountants are essential to the successful running of a company, but, he says, they also bear a burden of responsibility. "One bad year is enough to ruin a business and if things go wrong on the finance side, nothing will sink the ship faster."

There is a huge variety of courses that can lead to an accountancy career, and a wide choice of career options.

While it is still possible to go into an accountancy firm straight from school, White says it is increasingly becoming a graduate profession. However, he stresses, it is not essential to have done a specific accountancy or business studies degree: "It depends on how clear you are that you want to be an accountant. You need to be very set on it if you're going in straight from school, but your choices do not need to be fixed when you're 18. Quite a lot enter after doing a degree that has nothing to do with accountancy. Really you can join at any point if you're prepared to sit the exams."

The four main professional bodies offer different exemptions to their exams depending on the college course, or the level to which you have studied.

Albert Power, director of education and training at the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA), says that the route of leaving school and entering into a training contract is still very popular among financial accountants: "It is very egalitarian and quite a few senior accountants have no degree."

He says that some of the larger firms actively seek out applicants with masters' qualifications in accountancy, but the ICA has no preference on the route taken by students.

Accountants enjoy virtually full employment. Dan Maddox, head of the school of accountancy and business studies at Waterford IT, says firms often recruit his students while they are still in college: "The demand for their services far exceeds the numbers of accountants graduating."

Even if you choose to take the school-leaver's route, all of the professional bodies require you to sit exams, so you'll still be studying for a number of years. "One of the biggest problems students have is marrying the need to study with work commitments," says Maddox. Generally he says, graduates can complete their training within 12 months of leaving college.

Factfile - Accountancy

The four main professional accountancy bodies are: ICA - Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland CIMA - Chartered Institute of Management Accountants ACCA - Association of Chartered Certified Accountants CPA - Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland.

There are about 15,000 accountants working in the Republic; 7,832 of these are ICA members, 6,022 of whom are male. However, among new members, the split is about 50:50.