When looking to begin the ACA qualification, or if you are mid way through, a key question is around ACA exam pass rates.
As you will read below, the pass rates appear quite high on initial viewing. Something to note is that the vast majority of the people who are taking these exams are part of an accounting firm (many big 4) and getting a training contract at one of these firms is difficult. As such, the average person taking these exams is well qualified and intelligent.
The pass rates for the Professional and Advanced level are archived based on exam sitting on the ICAEW website (and outlined below). Pass rates for the Certificate level are not given by sitting as they can be taken at any time, and as such are given as total exams to date.
Full exam pathway below:
ACA exam pass rates
Certificate Level:
Information summarised in the below table represents exam statistics for the Certificate level exams which have been taken since 2019.
| Module | Exams Sat | Exams Passed | Pass Rate % |
| Accounting | 3,234 | 2,295 | 71.00% |
| Assurance | 2,655 | 2,364 | 89.00% |
| Business, Technology and Finance | 2,271 | 2,027 | 89.30% |
| Law | 2,758 | 2,505 | 90.80% |
| Management Information | 3, 506 | 2,859 | 81.50% |
| Principles of Taxation | 2,812 | 2,472 | 87.90% |
| Grand Total | 17,236 | 14,522 | 84.30% |
The information provided for both the professional level and advanced level are the ACA exam pass rates rates for the most recent 4 exam sittings for each level.
Professional Level:
| Module | March 2021 | December 2020 | September 2020 | March 2020 | Average |
| Audit & Assurance | 89.20% | 76.80% | 81.50% | 84.60% | 83.03% |
| Financial Accounting & Reporting (IFRS) | 85.30% | 76.90% | 83.60% | 86.10% | 82.98% |
| Tax Compliance | 83.80% | 77.10% | 84.50% | 84.10% | 82.38% |
| Business Planning: Taxation | 89.50% | 75.50% | 77.20% | 71.80% | 78.50% |
| Business Strategy & Technology | 94.70% | 91.50% | 85.30% | 86.90% | 89.60% |
| Financial Management | 88.80% | 86.30% | 81.60% | 80.80% | 84.38% |
*The statistics presented above represent all first attempts
Advanced level:
| Module | November 2020 | August 2020 | November 2019 | July 2019 | Average |
| Case Study | 77.60% | 76.70% | 76.30% | 76.70% | 76.83% |
| Corporate Reporting | 80.20% | 85.10% | 82.80% | 79.60% | 81.93% |
| Strategic Business Management | 88.20% | 87.60% | 85.20% | 83.90% | 86.23% |
*The statistics presented above represent all first attempts
So which is the hardest exam (based on ACA exam pass rates)?
Below I have ranked each of the ICAEW ACA exams based on pass rate. As you can see, based on pass rate alone, the Certificate level accounting exam is the most difficult, with a pass rate of just 71.0%.
Interestingly, the Certificate level Law exam is the easiest with an average pass rate of 90.8% – this may come as a surprise for many people.
| Module | Pass Rate (%) | Rank |
| Accounting | 71.00% | 1 |
| Case Study | 76.83% | 2 |
| Business Planning: Taxation | 78.50% | 3 |
| Management Information | 81.50% | 4 |
| Corporate Reporting | 81.93% | 5 |
| Tax Compliance | 82.38% | 6 |
| Financial Accounting & Reporting (IFRS) | 82.98% | 7 |
| Audit & Assurance | 83.03% | 8 |
| Financial Management | 84.38% | 9 |
| Strategic Business Management | 86.23% | 10 |
| Principles of Taxation | 87.90% | 11 |
| Assurance | 89.00% | 12 |
| Business, Technology and Finance | 89.30% | 13 |
| Business Strategy & Technology | 89.60% | 14 |
| Law | 90.80% | 15 |
It should be noted that from experience, these pass rates do not reflect the difficulty of the content in each syllabus.
Additionally, progression to the professional and advanced levels depends on completion of the certificate level in most cases. As such, the calibre of students completing the later exams is higher than at the start.
