James Gardner - Tax

Why did you choose to join Tax?
I chose to join Tax because it was something that I was interested in for some time. When I was at university I studied a taxation module in my final year, and was fairly interested in it and then a couple of years after I graduated I found that I was still interested in it. So I thought its got to be good for a career option, if you haven’t been taught in it for some time and you still find the area interesting, so I decided to pursue it, and subsequently found the role at Barclays available and decided to go for it.

Can you describe what Tax does?
The department of Tax in Barclays is all internal, I mean the main roles in the department are to ensure we are providing the right figures to Revenue and Customs, ensure we are compliant with the law so we don’t get in trouble. We also do other things such as forecasting and helping prepare the results for the annual reports and then with projects on an ad hoc basis, but they’ll help provide advice as to what the implications might be.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?The personal aspect, the fact that everyone in the office is very helpful, they’re all willing to help you out. If you’re stuck you can go to someone and they will make time to help you.

There is quite a good social culture within Barclays, so we try and arrange days out, sort of team building exercises, and if there’s not that, there is always football on a Thursday or you can go out to one of the local bars to relax and not necessarily talk about work, but I’m sure the topic will come up.

Aside from that I also enjoy the fact that the work is so varied, you can be working on a tiny project one day and then be working on a project that may last four to six months the next, so you can have various projects going at the same time. I’ve been working on one, that been going since I joined operations and that’s still going now. It was being worked on by the graduate before me and will probably be worked on by the graduate after me, so, as well as just day to day projects, the variation is good.

What support and training have you had since joining?
The support at Barclays has been excellent. As part of the graduate programme for tax, we train for the ACA which is the accounting qualification. They give us time off to go and study and they pay for the tuition as well. We study through FDC Caplin so you don’t need to take time off on your weekend to go in and go to courses, they actually allow you to go into college and give you the time off.

We’ve also been advised that if you are getting too much work at work when your exams are coming round, you can ask people to not put work on to you, so the support is very good. Aside from the actual qualification, we’ve been given the opportunity to attend extra training courses, so I personally attended courses in Excel and Abacus, which is another software programme. So they are happy to pay for any courses that are going to help you with your job and just to provide you with extra skills really.

What qualities do you need to succeed at Barclays?
It’s obviously quite a visible organisation so you have to be professional at all times. You have to be hard-working but most importantly I’d say you need to be a team player.

It’s all well and good being great at your job but you have to be willing to help people out, train those below you, and get involved when there’s a crisis. Personally I’m very numerate, I enjoy working with numbers but that’s not all about tax, you’ve got to look at the legislation somewhat, you’ve got to have a feel for what might be a better way of doing things.

Although there are things set in stone, you can change them. I’ve written documents on the best practices of how to perform year end work that weren’t in existence before, so there’s always room to add value.

Who at work inspires you and why?
One of the people at work who inspires me is the new head of Tax because he’s achieved this very high position in Barclays.

He’s obviously done very well in his professional career but I’ve spoken to him on several occasions and he’s a very personable person. I play football with him on Thursdays - he’s very active and leads a very family-orientated lifestyle outside of work and it’s quite nice to hear that someone’s become so close with their family.

He goes snowboarding with his sons at the weekend sometimes, so it’s nice to see he’s built such a great professional career whilst at the same time not sacrificing family life.