Pa Internal Audit Director
"PA to Internal Audit Director" is a personal assistant role supporting the senior person who runs an organisation's internal audit function - the team that independently checks whether the business's controls, risk management and processes actually work. Day to day you manage the director's diary, papers and correspondence, coordinate the audit team's meetings and reporting deadlines, and act as the gatekeeper between the director and the rest of the business, including board-level audit committees. You handle confidential material routinely, because internal audit sees things (fraud investigations, control failures, whistleblowing referrals) before the rest of the organisation does.
Approximate graduate salary
Starting salaries for PA and executive assistant roles supporting a director are typically somewhere around GBP 28,000-40,000, but this varies a lot - London, financial services and large listed companies pay at the higher end, while public sector, charity and regional roles often pay noticeably less.
What you'd actually do
- Managing a complex diary - booking and constantly rearranging meetings across time zones or UK sites, protecting blocks of time for report reviews, and deciding which meeting requests get through and which get pushed
How graduates get in
- Direct application to a PA or executive assistant vacancy, usually after a period as a team administrator, receptionist, office coordinator or junior secretary - this is by far the most common route and is not normally a graduate scheme
What employers ask for
- A degree is often not required at all; where employers do ask for one, the subject rarely matters. Strong literacy and numeracy (typically evidenced by GCSEs and A-levels) matters more than the degree classification
Skills that matter
Diary and inbox triage under conflicting demands
You are constantly deciding what the director sees, attends or ignores, and getting that wrong wastes the most expensive time in the department.
Where it leads
Consolidating in the PA role and taking on more of the audit function's administration - planning cycles, committee papers, team coordination
What people get wrong
“It's a graduate entry point into becoming an internal auditor.”
It very rarely is. Internal auditors are normally recruited separately, into audit graduate schemes or from accountancy and risk backgrounds, and they follow professional exams (such as those of the IIA or an accountancy body). A PA can move across, but it usually means applying for a junior audit role and starting the exams, not being promoted sideways.
Where this varies
The role differs enormously by organisation size and sector. In a large bank, insurer or FTSE-listed company the internal audit function is big, has its own budget and reports to a formal board audit committee, so the PA role is heavily geared towards committee papers, travel and managing a sizeable team's logistics. In a mid-sized company, NHS trust, university or council, "internal audit director" may head a small team or the work may be partly outsourced, and the PA post is often shared across several directors or combined with wider office management. Some employers use the title "Executive Assistant" for a more strategic version of the same job, involving project work and standing in for the director on administrative matters; others use "PA" for a more strictly diary-and-inbox role. Hybrid working is common but many employers expect office presence on committee and board days.
General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.