IT Audit Careers Guide

Welcome to Riskmonkey’s audit jobs and careers guide – explaining what audit and assurance is, who does it, how to get in to it and how to progress, particulary as a specialist informations systems auditor. Most of our guide applies equally to all types of auditor and we focus in parts on IT audit – what we are auditing may differ, but the role is essentially the same.

Links to each section of the audit careers guide can be found at the bottom of the page.

We’ve collected some of the best guidance and advise from the riskmonkey archives all in one place. We think this will answer your questions and also, in many cases, help you decide whether information risk is the field for you. Riskmonkey would like to thank the 30+ auditors from around the world who contributed to the articles in this guide.

IT audit is an interesting and rewarding profession, one in which you will have considerable responsbility and accountability. Our first article discusses the personality traits that will help or hinder you as a specialist information technology auditor.

Our second article discusses the role of audit in the enterprise by explaining the link between audit and risk (why the job is there for you to do in the first place), and then we take a brief look at what auditors should and should not be.

We then move on and take a look at what sort of tasks you can expect to do day-to-day as an auditor as you carry out your duties and complete audit engagements.

The next step is to discuss some of the qualifications that may help you on your journey. We take a look at CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor), CISM (Certified Information Systems Manager), CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Practitioner), ISO27001 Lead Auditor, and on a project management tangent we take a quick look at Prince 2 Practitioner for auditors.

We then discuss how to get the role and remuneration you’re looking for in your job. IT audit is a fairly well paid profession (though this does vary considerably) as the skill set and experience of a good IT auditor is hard to find.

Of course, not everyone wants to spend their whole career as a specialist or an auditor (though many do), so we take a quick look at where IT audit experience can take you.

If you still want to understand the role of different types of auditor and take a close-up look at the audit animal, you can also check out our ‘auditors in the wild’ series for a different take on auditors.

Finally, we end our guide with a short note – think carefully about your chosen career, whatever field it is in! If you’re note sure why that’s important, Arthur Miller can explain.

I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please tell others about it. If you didn’t, you think it could be improved, or you just have something you want to say about a career in IT audit, please comment below!