accountany experience ACCA

i'm working in IT in a public sector body and have passed 6 of the ACCA exams. I'm at the stage where I think it might be better to get out of my current job and get a trainee accountant position while I continue with my exams. I reckon that it should help me in the exams to be working in a relevant area & also I would be getting the 3 years experience required to become a qualified accountant.

From the research I've done so far it seems that practice is the least well paid, then industry & financial services is the best paid. The problem with getting experience in financial services is that this experience would not really be transferrable to practice or industry so i would again be starting at the bottom of the ladder in practice or industry if I moved even though I would be a member of the ACCA.

To me it seems that industry gives the best option as the pay drop won't be quite as bad as going to practice but at the same time the experience I would get would be fairly relevant to practice aswell.

My question is what type of companies would give me the best experience (ie. insurance, manufacturing, etc.) and also what type of experience should I be trying to get? I don't want to end up spending 3 years in a place and finding that the experience I got was useless.

Also are fund accountant jobs the main accounting positions in financial services or would there be any jobs in that sector that would be more transferrable to industry or practice?

This is a very wide area .
While practice might have lower money initially this is only for the training period. If you are successful in pratice the money is very good and also people often go into business on their own account from this route.
If you really like the academic side of accountancy than practice offers attractive work.
Alot of accountants who go into industry are aiming to eventually move out of the pure accountant role and move more into management.
Before going into Financial Services try and get an understanding of the work involved. Fund accountant roles can be very boring and it is a specialised area so you can becom stuck in it.

Thanks for the reply.
Actually since I posted the original question I am now thinking of going for a fund accountant position as i'm in my early thirties and about to get married (with a new mortgage aswell) and I can't really afford to take the big drop to industry or practice wages. From what I've heard recently the money is better in funds and also it increases a lot quicker than it would in industry.
I would not be interested in going down the management route in industry or the working for myself route in practice.
The only reason I was ruling out funds in the first place was that I'm hopeing to move down the country in a couple of years and thought that dublin was the only place to find funds jobs. Now I am hearing that funds companies are setting up new offices all around the country.
Any other advice much appreciated.

"To me it seems that industry gives the best option as the pay drop won't be quite as bad as going to practice but at the same time the experience I would get would be fairly relevant to practice aswell"

I'm qualified ACCA working in practice and this statement is not necessarily true...if you found a role where you would be preparing accounts to trial balance stage then you would have some advantage for moving into practice but with no auditing experiance you would find it difficult to move.

Although the initial salary in practice is very low post you need to look at the full picture. In practice in general you will get financial assistance (normally full course fees and most of the time exam fees too for first attempts) and also quite good study leave...I alway got at least one week per subject, normally two, plus the days of the exams. During a stint in industry I was entitled to one day per subject.

I don't know much about Fund Accounting but I am lead to believe that it can be very boring and you also take the risk of being pidgeon holed. If you are seriously thinking of going into funds then try and talk to a few people who work in the area, maybe some of your classmates work in funds or know someone who does.

Best of luck with the rest of the exams and your decision!