ACCA Ethics and Professional Skills Module (EPSM): A 2026 Guide

The Ethics and Professional Skills Module (EPSM) is one of the three things you must complete to qualify as an ACCA member — alongside your exams and your practical experience. It's an online, scenario-based module that builds the real-world professional judgement employers expect, and it directly supports the Strategic Professional exams. Here's what it involves, how long it takes, what it costs, and when to take it. If you're mapping out your route through the qualification, our ACCA courses are built around exactly this kind of planning.

What is the ACCA Ethics and Professional Skills Module?

The EPSM is a required component of the ACCA Qualification, not an optional extra. It sits alongside the 13 exams and the practical experience requirement (PER) as one of the three pillars you must complete for membership. Rather than testing technical knowledge, it develops the professional and ethical skills you'll use day to day — judgement, scepticism, communication and leadership — by putting you into realistic workplace scenarios and asking you to act. It increases your employability and proves to employers that you can handle yourself in real business situations, not just in an exam hall.

What does the module cover?

The EPSM is delivered as a series of interactive units, each building a different professional skill:

• Ethics and professionalism — the ethical and professional values that underpin everything else, giving you a structure for sound judgement.
• Personal effectiveness — managing your time, constraints and resources to do high-quality work.
• Innovation and scepticism — staying open-minded and creative while questioning the status quo rather than accepting it.
• Commercial awareness, analysis and problem solving — spotting opportunities, analysing them and advising decision-makers.
• Leadership and teamwork — how effective leadership motivates and supports individual and team performance.
• Communication and interpersonal skills — communicating clearly with internal and external stakeholders to advise, influence and support.

The final assessment

The module ends with a comprehensive assessment that pulls all of these skills together. In it, you step into the role of a senior accountant at an organisation facing new business and environmental challenges. You work through a series of realistic tasks — analysing your workload and priorities, preparing calculations and a report to the board on the financial and business implications, recommending how to reorganise and run your department cost-effectively, and helping steer a strategy group considering the way forward. It's designed to feel like the job, which is exactly why it carries over so well into the Strategic Professional exams.

How long does it take, and what does it cost?

The EPSM is self-paced and takes most students in the region of 20 hours, which you can spread over time rather than completing in one sitting. There's a one-off fee to access it (ACCA's published EPSM fee is in the region of £80 — confirm the current amount on ACCA's fee schedule before you start; see our guide to ACCA exam fees for the wider cost picture). You receive a certificate on completion.

When should you complete the EPSM?

You can take the module once you've registered, and the practical guidance is to complete it after your Applied Knowledge exams and before — or alongside — your Strategic Professional exams. The reason is overlap: the Strategic Business Leader (SBL) exam awards a meaningful share of its marks for demonstrating professional skills, and those are the very skills the EPSM builds. Doing the module first means you walk into SBL already practised in the behaviours it rewards, which can be the difference between a near-miss and a pass. If you've already started your Strategic Professional papers, complete the EPSM as soon as you can to get the benefit on the papers you have left.

Frequently asked questions

Is the EPSM compulsory?

Yes. You must complete the Ethics and Professional Skills Module to qualify for ACCA membership — it's a requirement on top of passing your exams and meeting the practical experience requirement.

When can I start the module?

You can access it after registering as an ACCA student. Most students complete it after Applied Knowledge and before the Strategic Professional exams, to get the professional-skills benefit in SBL.

How is the EPSM assessed?

Through the module's own interactive units and a final comprehensive case-study assessment in which you take on a senior accounting role and complete a series of realistic tasks. It's not a traditional sit-down exam.

Does the EPSM expire?

Once completed, it counts towards your membership. As requirements can change, check the current rules in your myACCA account if you're returning after a long break.

Build the skills with Learnsignal

The EPSM and the Strategic Professional exams reward the same thing: applying professional judgement under realistic pressure. Learnsignal's tutor-led ACCA courses build that exam technique alongside your technical study, so the skills you develop in the module carry straight through to the papers that matter most.