What is CIMA study?
CIMA is the acronym for the largest professional association for Management Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. They offer one of the most widely respected and internationally accepted accountancy qualifications for students wishing to pursue a lucrative career in Business, Management or Accountancy.
Spreading the Cost of (Self-Funded) Study
Whether you study for UK CIMA courses full or part time is mostly down to your individual circumstances and career goals. For many CIMA students, the course is self-funded so not only do you need to work alongside study in order to pay for it, you also need to spread the cost while you learn.
Reconsider if you are thinking of taking the course part time solely in order to spread the cost because the quicker you qualify as a Chartered Management Accountant, the sooner you can start earning a heftier salary.
Workplace Funding
If the course is funded by your employer, part time study is likely to be the best option. Squeezing in full time work and full time study together, especially for advanced professional qualifications, is going to be very difficult. You will be unlikely to give your time to either the CIMA study course or your employer. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons the majority of students do tend to follow the part time route.
Yet, if you feel you can cope and are set on full time study, with considerable commitment from you, it will take around one year to complete all five exams, though you must have three years of technical experience before you can fully qualify. Studying full time for one year will, in most cases, mean the course could take you at least four years to complete, as you would need to add the technical work experience onto the study.
Availability
Because there is considerably less demand to study full time CIMA courses than part time, the number of available places and providers is limited. Many of the major course providers do offer the course full time in popular locations like London and Manchester, but you will find it more difficult to find a full time course provider in Newcastle and similar cities, and impossible in many locations.
There are 97 course providers for the CIMA registered to CIMA itself as quality partners in the United Kingdom but only 25 of these offer a full time study option and places are likely to be limited.
For part time students, choice is plentiful and courses can be found in most major UK cities and hubs, although the supply of providers in London is more plentiful than anywhere else. Part time courses from these providers can be held on evenings, weekends or study days.
For those looking for flexibility (or wanting to study with a provider somewhere other than where they live) flexible, part time distance learning courses are offered by almost all learning providers. These are often cheaper than attending in person as the costs to the providers of the course are less (and they can accept more students this way).
Lessons, seminars, lectures and course notes are all made available online, as well as other study materials and revision notes. Flexible online learning allows you to study at your own pace and could turn out to be a more convenient solution for you than either part time or full time conventional CIMA study.
