The short version: Career changers get hired fastest into remote bookkeeping, accounts payable/receivable, payroll processing, and seasonal tax prep, not audit or senior accounting roles, and the software you can prove you know matters more than the degree you don’t have. Expect $18 to $32 an hour to start in the US, or £22,000 to £30,000 in the UK, with a realistic six-month timeline if you certify in QuickBooks or Xero first.
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The remote accounting roles hiring people without an accounting degree
I get asked this constantly, usually by someone in my Facebook community who’s spent fifteen years in retail management, teaching, or hospitality and has decided that “something with numbers, from home” is the plan. Here’s what that looks like once you strip out the wishful thinking.
Remote bookkeeping is the widest door. Firms like Bench, Bookkeeper360, and Pilot hire people with no accounting degree but a QuickBooks or Xero certification, and pay $20 to $28 an hour to start, rising to $50,000 to $65,000 a year once you’re managing your own client roster. In the UK, small practices advertising on Indeed and totaljobs for “remote bookkeeper, part-qualified or AAT” typically pay £22,000 to £30,000. I’ve written a full breakdown of what these firms check before hiring in my piece on remote bookkeeping jobs and how to qualify, and it’s the single most useful thing you can read before you spend a penny on a course.
Accounts payable and receivable clerk roles are the second door, and they’re underrated because they sound boring on paper. Companies like ADP, Paychex, and mid-size manufacturers routinely list fully remote AP/AR clerk roles at $18 to $24 an hour in the US, or £21,000 to £26,000 in the UK. These jobs want reliability and Excel competence over credentials, and they’re often the fastest interview-to-offer of anything on this list, sometimes two weeks.
Remote payroll specialist is the third, and it pays slightly better, $22 to $30 an hour in the US or £24,000 to £32,000 in the UK, because payroll compliance mistakes cost employers money and they’ll pay for someone who won’t make them. ADP, Gusto, and Rippling all hire remote payroll support staff, and a Sage or Xero payroll certificate, which takes two to four weeks online, is often the entire qualification bar.
Seasonal tax preparer is the fourth, and it’s the one nobody mentions because it’s not a year-round job, but it’s a good way in. Intuit’s TurboTax Live and H&R Block both hire remote tax preparers every January through April, pay $20 to $35 an hour depending on state and complexity, and will train you and cover the cost of an IRS PTIN if you commit to the season. I know three people who used one tax season as their proof of concept before applying for permanent bookkeeping roles the following autumn, using the seasonal gig as the line on their CV that got them past the “no experience” filter.
What most people picture, staff accountant or financial analyst working remotely for a mid-size company, does exist, but it usually wants at minimum a part-qualified ACCA, AAT Level 4, or a US bachelor’s in accounting plus a year or two of bookkeeping experience first. Those roles pay $55,000 to $75,000 in the US and £30,000 to £42,000 in the UK, and they’re a second step, not a first one, for almost everyone reading this.
What you need before you apply, in order
This is where career changers waste the most time, either doing too much before applying or not enough. Here’s the sequence that gets people hired, based on what I’ve watched work for people in my own network:
- Week 1 to 2: get QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certified (free, self-paced, through Intuit’s own training portal) or Xero Advisor certified (also free through Xero’s partner programme). This is non-negotiable and it’s the single credential every remote bookkeeping firm screens for first.
- Week 3 to 4: if you’re in the UK, enrol in AAT Level 2 (roughly £300 to £600 depending on provider, eight to twelve weeks part-time) so you have a recognised qualification alongside the software certificate. In the US, a community college bookkeeping certificate (often $500 to $1,200, run over eight to ten weeks) does the same job.
- Week 4 to 8: get three real transactions under your belt, even unpaid. Do the books for a friend’s small business, a local charity, or your own side project. Firms want to see actual client work in QuickBooks or Xero, not just a certificate. This single step is what separates the people who get interviews from the people who don’t.
- Week 8 onwards: apply directly to Bench, Bookkeeper360, Paro, Beech Valley Solutions, and Accountingfly (a job board built specifically for remote accounting roles), plus local practices in your area advertising remote or hybrid bookkeeping support. Don’t wait until you feel ready. Nobody feels ready.
A real example, because the theory only helps so much
A woman I’ll call Denise, because that’s not her real name but her story is real, messaged me on LinkedIn in early 2025. She’d managed a Boots store in Leeds for eleven years, was 47, and had been made redundant when the branch closed. She had zero accounting background beyond doing her own household spreadsheets. She did the QuickBooks ProAdvisor certificate in three weeks, enrolled in AAT Level 2 the same month, and did the books for her sister’s hairdressing business for free for two months so she’d have something concrete to point to. Five months after we first spoke, she was working remotely for a small accountancy practice in Harrogate, part-time, £14,500 pro-rata on a 20-hour week, which she then converted to full-time at £27,000 within a year once she’d finished Level 3. She didn’t have a single accounting qualification when she started. She had a certificate, one real client, and a willingness to apply before she felt ready. That combination beats a half-finished ACCA on its own, most of the time.
The part the job ads don’t tell you
Here’s the uncomfortable bit. A lot of the “remote bookkeeper, no experience necessary” postings you’ll find on Indeed and LinkedIn are contractor positions with no benefits, no sick pay, and a billable hours target that turns out to be tighter than the ad implied. I’ve seen postings advertise “$25 an hour, flexible schedule” that in practice expect you to bill 35 hours a week to hit quota, with unpaid time spent chasing client documents or fixing categorisation errors that don’t count toward billable hours. That’s not a scam exactly, it’s just not what the headline number suggests, and nobody writing “top 10 remote accounting jobs” listicles wants to say it because it makes the whole category look less shiny.
The other thing nobody says plainly: entry-level remote accounting roles are often more competitive than the equivalent in-office job, not less, because everyone assumes remote means easier to get. A single Bookkeeper360 posting can pull 400 applicants in 48 hours. The people who get through aren’t the most qualified on paper, they’re the ones whose CV shows software fluency in the first three lines, because that’s what the recruiter is scanning for in the eight seconds they’ll spend on your application before moving to the next one.
If you want the wider picture of who’s realistically hiring for remote work right now, and which sectors are inflating their numbers, I’ve laid it out in my piece on jobs remote hiring and the real openings for 2026, and it applies just as much to accounting as it does to customer service or admin.
Where these jobs sit in the wider remote market
Accounting and bookkeeping are one of the more stable corners of the remote work from home jobs market because the work itself, reconciling accounts, processing payroll, chasing invoices, doesn’t need anyone in a physical office to do it well, and firms have known this for over a decade now, well before the pandemic normalised it for everyone else. If you want a wider view of what pays well and what’s overhyped across the whole remote job landscape, my full guide on remote work from home jobs and the real options covers customer support, virtual assistance, and content roles alongside finance, so you can compare pay bands honestly rather than assuming accounting is automatically the best-paid option, because for entry-level roles, it often isn’t, virtual assistant and customer success roles at SaaS companies frequently pay the same or more to start.
One practical note before you spend money anywhere: job boards like FlexJobs charge a subscription to access their listings, and career changers new to remote work assume that’s the only way to find legitimate postings. It isn’t. I’ve broken down exactly what you get for the fee and what you can find for free instead in my piece on FlexJobs remote jobs and what you need to know before you pay, and for accounting specifically, Accountingfly and direct firm career pages will get you further than a general paid board will.
How the US, UK, and Israel markets differ if you’re job hunting across borders
Because I split my time across the UK, the US, and Israel, I get asked whether the certification path differs. It does, a bit. In the US, a QuickBooks ProAdvisor certificate plus a community college bookkeeping certificate is usually enough to be taken seriously for remote bookkeeping and AP/AR roles. In the UK, AAT is the credential recruiters recognise, and QuickBooks or Xero certification sits alongside it rather than replacing it. In Israel, remote bookkeeping for local businesses typically wants familiarity with Israeli tax software like Priority or Rivhit rather than QuickBooks, but a growing number of Israeli-founded startups hire remote bookkeepers and AP clerks to work on their US-facing books in QuickBooks or NetSuite specifically because they need someone who understands both systems, and that’s a genuine niche worth knowing about if you speak Hebrew and English and have even basic US bookkeeping certification.
What the pay looks like once you’re past the first year
Year one, expect $22 to $30 an hour or £23,000 to £29,000 doing straightforward bookkeeping, AP/AR, or payroll support. By year two, once you’ve got a full tax season or two under your belt and ideally a Level 3 or 4 AAT, or a couple of QuickBooks-certified years in the US, remote bookkeeping business owners running their own client book routinely bill $35 to $50 an hour, and full-time remote staff accountant roles open up at $55,000 to $70,000. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks was $47,440 as of May 2023, which gives you a reasonable floor to compare any offer against, whether the role is remote or not.
The honest ceiling for someone without a full accounting qualification, at least in the first three to five years, sits around $75,000 in the US or £42,000 in the UK, in a remote staff accountant or senior bookkeeper role. Getting past that ceiling into controller or finance manager territory does eventually need ACCA, CPA, or an equivalent, there’s no shortcut around that one. But that’s a problem for year four, not for the person trying to get their first remote accounting job this month.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an accounting degree to get a remote bookkeeping job?
No. Most remote bookkeeping and AP/AR employers care more about a QuickBooks or Xero certification and proof you’ve handled real transactions than a degree, though a recognised qualification like AAT in the UK helps once you’re aiming for higher pay or promotion.
How long does it realistically take to switch careers into remote accounting?
Most career changers I’ve watched go from zero to a paid remote bookkeeping or AP/AR role in four to six months, using a free software certification, a short bookkeeping course, and a few weeks of unpaid or discounted client work to build a portfolio.
What’s the best entry-level remote accounting job for a total beginner?
Remote bookkeeper and accounts payable/receivable clerk roles are the easiest entry points because they hire on software certification and reliability rather than a degree, followed closely by seasonal remote tax preparer roles at firms like Intuit or H&R Block during tax season.
Are remote accounting jobs well paid compared to other remote work?
They’re solid but not exceptional at entry level, US remote bookkeepers start around $20 to $28 an hour, similar to entry-level virtual assistant or customer success roles, and the real pay increase comes after a year or two once you’ve got client experience and a stronger qualification behind you.
Useful references
For the practical version of this, see the contributor guidelines.
