FinanceCompass A UK guide to finance careers · for 16–18 · updated September 2026
The map

You don’t need to know where
you’re going yet.

FinanceCompass maps the years between GCSEs and university — getting better at Maths and Economics, finding things worth doing outside school, understanding how money actually moves, and seeing where all of it can lead.

Start here See everything you can do
The City after hours — where a lot of this eventually leads
01

What do you want to do next?

Five ways through this site. You do not have to pick one and stay in it — most people wander between them, which is the point of a map.

02

You’ve just finished GCSEs

Six steps, in a sensible order. It takes about two years, not an afternoon — and you can start anywhere on it.

  1. 01

    Get genuinely good at Maths

    It does more work than any other subject on this site. Not the syllabus repeated — why the methods work, and how to start a question nobody has labelled.

  2. 02

    Understand how money moves

    Where money goes after someone earns it, and why banks, businesses, investors and governments each exist in the chain.

  3. 03

    Go past the syllabus in Economics

    Game theory, behavioural experiments and market failure — played and tested before they are defined.

  4. 04

    Find out what any of it leads to

    Forty-eight careers, what people in them actually do on a Tuesday, and which subjects turn up again and again.

  5. 05

    Do something outside school

    Competitions, reading and projects. Not to decorate an application — to end up with something you can actually argue about.

  6. 06

    Work out the deadlines

    Apprenticeship applications open earlier than most people expect, and UCAS is not the first date that matters.

03

What’s coming up

Checked against the organiser, never carried over from last year. The full list says what each one tests and why it is worth doing.

04

Every section

If you would rather navigate by subject than by goal.

01PathA-levels, universities, apprenticeships→ 02CareersForty-eight roles, entry routes and pay→ 03MoneyTake-home pay, student loans, saving→ 04MarketsWho holds the money and who moves it→ 05EconomicsBeyond the syllabus — and a hundred-term glossary→ 06LearnWhere to get better — maths, economics, finance, practice→ 07ToolsCompare careers, model compounding→
05

Find your entry point

Two questions. The answers rank all forty-eight roles by how closely they match what you actually like, and tell you what to do between now and your next deadline.

Q1

Where are you now?

Q2

What actually pulls you in?

Choose as many as apply.

Matching is deliberately crude: it scores how many of your interests each role touches. It is a starting point for reading, not a verdict. Nobody should pick a career from a ranked list.

06

Every finance job does one of three things

The job titles change constantly. The three functions underneath them do not. Work out which verb you want and the shortlist writes itself.

01
Moves money
For example

Getting capital from the people who have it to the people who need it — and taking a cut for the judgement involved. Fastest pay, longest hours, hardest to enter.

Trader · Banker · Quant
Fund manager · PE · Research
02
Prices risk
For example

Working out how likely something bad is, then putting a number on it. The most mathematical corner of the industry and the most secure.

Actuary · Risk · Credit
Underwriter · Broker · Economist
03
Keeps score
For example

Counting what happened, checking it is true, and making sure the rules were followed. The widest doors in — and the qualifications that travel furthest.

Accountant · Tax · Corporate finance
Compliance · Wealth · Data
Browse all forty-eight roles
Fig. A · Markets London is one node of this, not the whole thing. The same jobs exist in New York, Frankfurt and Singapore — which is why the qualifications on the next page travel.
The thing nobody tells you at sixteen

You do not need a finance degree, a family contact, or a London postcode. You need a subject you are genuinely good at, one qualification the industry recognises, and the patience to sit exams while working.

Build your route
07

Start with the basics

Five ideas carry almost every conversation in this industry. If you can explain risk against return, liquidity, leverage, diversification and the time value of money in plain English, you can follow a market report, an interview question, or a pension statement.

When those five stop feeling difficult, the Economics section picks the thread up where A-level puts it down: game theory played rather than defined, behavioural experiments you take before reading the answer, and why markets fail even when everyone behaves sensibly.

Read the five ideas Then go past the syllabus
9%
Student loan

Of everything you earn above £25,000 on Plan 5 — the repayment rate that shapes your twenties more than your salary does.

15 Oct
Earliest deadline

Oxbridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary applications close in Year 13. Everything else follows in late January.

£0
Apprentice tuition

Degree apprentices pay no fees and draw a salary. The employer funds the degree and the professional exams.

3 yrs
To qualify

Roughly what the ACA takes. Pass it and your pay steps up sharply — the exams, not the years, do the work.

Every figure on this site is either a rule (a threshold, a deadline, a rate) or a typical range clearly labelled as such. There are no invented statistics.

About this guide

This exists because most finance careers advice is written by people selling something — a university place, a course, a graduate scheme. This isn't. It is a plain map of what the jobs are, what they pay, and what they ask for, put together so that a sixth-former can read it in an evening and know more than most adults do about the industry.

Three rules were used throughout. Every number is either a rule — a threshold, a deadline, a statutory rate — or a range clearly labelled as typical. Nothing is invented to look impressive. And where a figure moves each year, it says so and tells you to check.

It is not advice. Nobody here knows your grades, your finances or what you would enjoy on a wet Tuesday in February. It is a starting point for better questions.

Independent · not affiliated with any employer or university Updated September 2026
Where the numbers come from

Tax, National Insurance and student loan thresholds are the published 2026/27 rules. Pay ranges are typical London figures reported by employers and professional bodies. Deadlines are the published ones — with the moving UCAS date flagged rather than guessed.

What it deliberately leaves out

Rankings of firms, "top ten tips", and any claim about which career is best. The Careers page gives forty-eight options and the arithmetic to compare them; the choice is not ours to make.

Corrections

If a threshold has changed or a route has closed, the figure here is wrong and should be fixed. Treat every number as checkable — and check it.