Whistle-stop Wednesdays: Finding my path through Admiral

What do you do in Admiral and how long have you been working here?

I am 3 weeks into my new role as a Trainee Management Accountant in Admiral Pioneer, a new entity within Admiral Group which seeks to seed, launch and scale new independent businesses. In my role I mainly support the delivery of the Management Information (MI) for the various domains, reconcile a variety of control accounts and produce monthly accounting and submissions to Group Finance. I also work with the budgets/forecasts and act as a general point of contact to the wider business for finance related queries. I joined Admiral almost 6 years ago starting in the Renewals department.

How did you get into your role? What is your background?

My Renewals position as a phone agent was my first job after finishing Sixth Form. I knew I didn't want to go to university but had no idea at that point what I wanted to do for my career. I stayed in Renewals for just under a year. It was the perfect role for me at the time as it gave me a lot of self-confidence before I then moved within the business. My second job in Admiral was on an admin team in the IT department. It was a secondment for maternity cover, and I had a variety of day-to-day tasks. One of them was to be the point of contact between the IT department and the Purchase Ledger team in Finance. This introduced me to company procedures, dealing with invoices and budgets. After some time, this became my sole responsibility and when a job advert went up for a Purchase Ledger Assistant, it felt like a natural step for me to take. 

During my time in Purchase Ledger, I was offered the chance to begin studying for the AAT qualification which I was excited about and took the opportunity. By this point I had already been hopeful that my career would remain within Finance and when I started the qualification, I quickly realised that my goal would be to become a qualified Management Accountant. I learnt a lot in my 3 and a half years in the Purchase Ledger team in Admiral Group, but it felt like the right time to progress further. When the job for the Trainee Management Accountant role came out, I doubted myself a bit but was quickly encouraged to apply and was lucky enough to be successful in my application. Joining Admiral Pioneer is such an exciting opportunity with a lot of scope and variety. I'm looking forward to learning more in my role and my studies and growing alongside Admiral Pioneer.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

What I enjoy most about my work is continuously learning about accounting and business practices. Admiral Pioneer has such a diverse group of people with different work backgrounds and experiences that I am very grateful to have the opportunity to work with and learn from them.

What's the most exciting change or project happening within your area?

One of the best things about Admiral Pioneer is that there is always something going on. A new product being launched or developed under one of the three domains: Mobility, Live to 101 & Future of Work (which you can read more about in our recent article – 5 things you should know about Pioneer), and meetings where new ideas are being put out and discussed. A new product has just been launched which is Toolbox by Admiral, so it will be exciting to see how that does.

Do you think there are lots of opportunities to grow and develop here?

As Admiral Pioneer is a new part of the business there is a lot of scope for growth. It is essentially a group of start-up businesses that are being backed and funded by Admiral. Over the next 10 years there is a goal to have 2-3 successful businesses progressing as new avenues for Admiral.

What’s the culture like in your area and how is it changing?

Despite being new to Admiral Pioneer I was quickly welcomed in and felt included even before my official start date! Everyone has been lovely and really helpful. There is a weekly Friday quiz as well which is nice to have at the end of the week. I'm looking forward to getting into the office and meeting everyone properly soon.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to join your area?

Admiral Pioneer is incredibly innovative, that's what the brand is built on. So we need creative, motivated and ambitious people to join us. It is a group of enthusiastic, talented and open-minded people from different industries collaborating on a big challenge.

Click here to view our current vacancies.