My advice to anyone looking to develop themselves - learn how to use excel properly, I mean VBA coding and learning to use other functions that aren't pivot or Vlookups. If you can build a financial model (other than linear regression), you are hot property.
I completely disagree with this. None of the successful finance people in the company I work for know extraordinary amounts about Excel, because there are junior people that do it for them. The value is more about interpretation and communication of what the techs produce, than it is about producing them yourself. The people that know VBA very well are basically asked to produce a model that does xyx, after which the person that asked them to do it goes to management and execs with their interpretation and insight of the data, thereby taking all the glory.
All the "Excel gurus" at my company are pigeon-holed as such and there they remain. They're insular and technical, lacking social skills and without a single strategic thought in their heads. Or so finance management would believe.
And doctors and lawyers are what astronauts become when they fail school, I'm not sure what your point is
Feel free to start a thread discussing astronauts and doctors
. The point is that the market is absolutely flooded these days with CIMA / ACCA / ACA etc., and a point of interest is that many of these have chosen this line of work having not made the cut as a doctor.
Anyway, you have to do something else to differentiate yourself in the long run in order to get ahead. Look to your qualification in the short term, that's fine and very commendable, but it will only get you so far on its own and those looking upon it as a stepping stone rather than the finishing line have got the right idea.
Of course, you might not be at all ambitious, in which case sit pretty on your ACMA qualification and VBA expertise...