In the face of shifting economic and regulatory conditions in the UK, junior tax professionals need to consider what skills they need to acquire to help grow their careers in the long term.
Regulations are becoming more complex and stringent, with FATCA and BEPS regulations impacting the financial services sector, and HRMC’s risk-based approach requiring businesses to provide a clear and concise approach to reporting.
Making Tax Digital has become a huge focus for long-term projects.
Embrace tax technology
- Businesses are investing heavily in data analytics, robotics and tax technology platforms and tax professionals with expertise in this area, so professionals with a grounding in these fields will be highly sought after.
Involvement in tax transformation projects
- Familiarity not only with how to use tax software systems but how to implement them will be a highly valuable skill.
- As technology continues to develop, implementing new systems will become a regular occurrence.
- Just as technology evolves, so will regulatory frameworks.
Move into an industry tax team early in your career to gain exposure to tax technology
- Seek out in-house roles which offer the potential for career progression to ensure that you are able to gain more strategic and technology-related experience as quickly as possible to position yourself for senior roles. This will enable you to really see through your work from start to finish and implement it into the business.
More and more of the businesses we work with are expecting candidates to have had exposure to technology. Those that have a deep understanding of the robotics behind such systems, plus strong tax technical compliance and reporting knowledge are in a fantastic position.
