A director at a leading West Midlands accountancy practice is marking a magnificent four decades in the job – a role he feared he would lose in the first year after “spectacularly” failing his accountancy exams.
It’s a year of double celebration for Jamie Skelding, from Prime Accountants Group, as he marks 40 years in the role in the same year he will celebrate his 60th birthday.
Jamie puts his longevity and success down to being a grafter and always going the extra mile for his clients – but joked that he feared the role might be a short-lived one after he failed an early accountancy exam three times.
Fortunately, the firm then known as Pilley and Florsham saw plenty of promise in the Bablake School alumni and he worked his way through the ranks, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1996, before becoming a partner in 2000 and a director in 2016.
“These days, I’m told people entering the workforce might have six or seven jobs over their career. I left school, joined the firm as a junior and simply grafted,” said Jamie.
“Now I’m adding people to the payroll who weren’t even born when I started here!
“I never wanted to be the top dog – that was never really my personality. I’ve always been half-decent at numbers, but ironically that’s not really what mattered most in the role.
“I worked diligently and always tried to do a bit more than was necessary, without expecting anything in return. That stood me in really good stead professionally and helped me progress through the firm.”
Jamie said the differences between the role he first took on in 1986 and the job he holds with Prime today are significant.
He said: “I started at our Coventry office, then spent some time in the former Leamington office – which even had an outside toilet! I’m sitting here now in the third of our refurbished offices, and it’s incredible to see how far things have come.
“Computers were literally just coming in. We had one computer in a room – in fact, it filled the room! You had to book your slot and sit at this huge thing, which you’d leave running for what felt like hours. You’d go away and do something else and come back when it had finished doing what you needed it to do.
“To see that change to everyone having a laptop that fits in your hand, with enormous computing power, email and instant communication – it’s a completely different world.
“The biggest change has been technology and the speed of its development. We used to wade through cardboard boxes just to get a set of accounts. Then people got computers but didn’t really know what to do with them – it generated ‘computerised rubbish’ which almost took longer to sort out. As systems became more user-friendly, it got much easier.
“In the past, around 80 per cent of the time was spent creating a set of accounts. Now, the bulk of time is spent understanding the data and explaining what it means to the client, which is so much more satisfying and useful.”
Jamie is also celebrating a decade on the senior leadership team and is the firm’s finance director. He has additional responsibility for payroll and IT and also sits on the board of sister company Prime Wealth.
He added: “Looking back, I failed my accounting exams spectacularly and must have been on the edge of getting the heave-ho, but I just carried on working hard – and it paid off.
“Soon after, I received one-to-one training from a director leading a portfolio and I was exposed to everything very quickly. I’ve been lucky enough to work my way forward from there.”
Jamie, who said one thing he’s credited with was filing the first ever electronic corporation tax return, is now looking to the future with Prime, which has offices in Solihull, Birmingham and Coventry.
“It’s a really exciting time for the business, with significant growth among our team and a very high calibre of talent being attracted to join us from national firms. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds,” he added.
“Thank you to those pioneers that gave me the chance and to the team, without whose support I could not have grown and developed over the years.”
Morgan Davies, managing director of Prime Accountants Group, said: “Jamie has built exceptionally strong client relationships over his four decades at Prime and brings and a fantastic work ethic to the job, which is shown by his continued desire to help improve the firm.
“It’s thanks in no small part to his efforts that we’re in such a strong and ambitious place as a business. Many congratulations to Jamie on this milestone!”
For more information on Prime Accountants Group, visit www.primeaccountants.co.uk.
