Vanessa Aradia

11/09/2026

Thank you FE News for featuring my article.

For anyone who wants to go deeper, the full white paper, Knowledge Isn't Enough, is at www.vanessaaradia.com

https://www.fenews.co.uk/exclusive/can-they-actually-do-the-job-why-knowledge-was-only-ever-part-of-the-story/

| Can They Actually do the Job? Why Knowledge was Only Ever Part of the Story

10/09/2026

National Payroll Week has confirmed something we already knew and that is, payroll professionals are truly awesome.

This week has been full of conversations across the profession about challenges, opportunities and where payroll is heading.

There is a real shortage of qualified payroll professionals and huge demand for their expertise. That creates a brilliant opportunity for people looking for a career with progression, influence and purpose which also affects people’s lives every single day.

A payroll career can take you into operations, compliance, technology, transformation, global payroll, consultancy, leadership and strategy.

AI is changing the role of payroll professionals, and that makes our human capabilities increasingly important.

Dannielle Haig's presentation at the GPA event brought this to life beautifully, exploring human behaviour and the importance of human-centred capability in business strategy.

But the pinnacle of the week came today when we launched The Institute of Certified Bookkeepers Future Skills Challenge.

It is our response to what has become increasingly clear through 12 months of research into skills gaps across industries, education, employability and the future of work with AI, alongside countless conversations about the capabilities people want to strengthen.

And it is completely free for anyone who wants to take part.

Elon Musk recently suggested that within five years AI could be capable of doing almost everything a human can do, with one very significant exception:

Being human.

So let’s get really good at it.

The Future Skills Challenge is now open for sign-up and the link is in the comments.

Join us and strengthen the skills that will shape the future of work.

This photograph of Canary wharf, was taken from the roof terrace at the Sage offices in London, and that rainbow feels like the perfect image to finish National Payroll Week.

The Future Skills Challenge is the pot at the end of the rainbow.

07/09/2026

It’s National Payroll Week, and a good opportunity to recognise just how much sits behind the word payroll.

Payroll touches so many of the conversations happening around organisations every day, from pay, pensions and reward to workforce planning, technology, compliance, employee wellbeing and the wider employee experience.

At the centre of all of it are people. People working hard, being rewarded for that work and relying on payroll to help them pay their mortgage or rent, support their families, make plans and live their lives.

And the role of the payroll professional continues to evolve.

Alongside deep technical and legislative knowledge, payroll professionals increasingly need digital and data literacy, confidence with AI and technology, logical thinking, critical analysis, creative problem-solving, systems thinking, sound judgement, communication skills, commercial awareness, curiosity, adaptability, resilience, empathy and strong ethical decision-making.

It is a profession that brings together finance, people, technology, legislation, systems and business. That breadth of knowledge and capability deserves far greater recognition.

So I’m really looking forward to a week celebrating payroll across the , The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), Sage, Institute of Certified Bookkeepers and the Global Payroll Alliance, alongside so many others who care deeply about the profession and its future.

A huge shout out this week to payroll professionals everywhere, and also to the tutors, training providers, software teams, bureaux, educators, employers and everyone helping people build careers and capability in payroll.

Happy National Payroll Week.

05/09/2026

Productivity that costs your people isn’t productivity.
That’s the heart of my new free guide, Work Smart, Live Well: A People-Centred Guide to Adopting AI in Your Small Business.

Here’s the bit most AI advice skips. When a tool saves your team six hours a week, those hours don’t automatically become anything good. Left alone, they silently fill up with more work, and the late nights creep back. Saved time disappears unless you decide where it goes.

So this guide treats saved time like a dividend. Some you spend on growth. Some you invest in learning. And some you bank: earlier finishes, real lunch breaks, no Sunday emails. That last part isn’t a perk. It’s the point.

Inside you’ll find eight short chapters and eight practical tools: a people-first test for any new tool, a readiness check, a one-page set of AI principles, a 30-day sprint, wellbeing commitments worth writing down, a twenty-minute monthly review, a money check that makes every subscription earn its keep, and a 90-day plan on a single page.

It’s free, it’s in plain English, and it’s built for real small businesses, not tech departments.

Download it here: vanessaaradia.com

Work smart. Live well. Both, on purpose.

Speaker, consultant and author helping people and organisations work smarter and live better. AI, leadership, sustainability and lifelong learning.

04/09/2026

I am immensely proud of this programme and the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers teams that have bought this into fruition.

On 10 September, we launch the ICB Future Skills Challenge, beginning with my Thrive Thursday session and our members and students, before opening the programme more widely to our sponsors, partners and others across the profession.

This is about the future of work, but more importantly, it is about the future of people at work.

The future of work will ask us to understand our human value more clearly, develop it more deliberately and make it more visible.

The Future Skills Challenge has been designed to give people the opportunity to actively develop those capabilities, recognise where they are already strong and evidence the skills that will help them work confidently and effectively alongside AI.

I cannot wait to get this started.

Five capabilities. Five honest scores. One challenge. September's Thrive on a Thursday is the webinar where you play games and leave with a challenge: a live, anonymous soft skills assessment that launches the Future Skills Challenge. Turn up, join in, and walk out a founding member.

ICB members can book their place via the website: https://www.bookkeepers.org.uk/Shop/Thrive-Thursday/e/16326/

02/09/2026

Hear from Vanessa Aradia, Head of Learning & Development at ICB, in this year's Bookkeepers Summit.

Vanessa has over 30 years of experience across payroll, accountancy, education and organisational leadership. She leads ICB’s global education strategy and also runs her own accountancy practice.

In Beyond Compliance: Becoming Indispensable to Your Clients, Vanessa will explore how bookkeepers and payroll professionals can grow beyond compliance work and build services that clients genuinely value.

Book your place: https://www.bookkeeperssummit.com/

02/09/2026

Every syllabus is a promise: study this, and it will still matter when you need it.

It is quite a promise to make at the moment. The technical rules of my profession change every year. The software changes every month. And machine intelligence now holds more stored knowledge than any professional ever will, available to everyone, on demand.

So what should we promise the people who trust us to prepare them for the future?

My new essay argues that the answer was visible all along, in the oldest form of professional education we have. Knowledge is the seed, and seed matters enormously. Capability is what grows when that seed meets the soil of real work, real judgement and real consequences. The institutions that keep faith with their learners are the ones that promise, and provide, both.

The essay takes in Polanyi on tacit knowledge, the shortening half-life of technical expertise, the strongest objection to the skills argument, and the quiet redesign of apprenticeship assessment now underway, which may prove the most consequential education reform of the year.

A Syllabus Is a Promise is live now on Work Smart, Live Well. Link in the comments.

What happened when my exams met a shoebox, and what our institutions owe the people who trust them to prepare them for the future · Work Smart, Live Well · September 2026

24/08/2026

Thank you to FE News for featuring my latest article.

Information, analysis and technical support are increasingly available almost instantly. Your advantage will come from what you can do with them: how well you interpret, question, judge, adapt and apply what you know in real situations.

This puts occupational competence, real-world problem solving and adaptive expertise at the centre of the future of FE.

| Skills are the new Currency, what this Summer's Reforms ask of the FE Sector

22/08/2026

The new Work Smart, Live Well weekly is out.

This week: why rest is not the opposite of productivity, it's part of the system.

Inside:

Fallow Time, the idea your working life is missing.
A four-part model for sustainable performance.
Five ideas on the radar, including attention as an ecology and AI's cognitive trade-offs.
Eight brilliant reads, listens and watches.
One experiment to try this week: The Fallow Hour.

Free to read, with a designed PDF edition to download.

Work smart is the means. Living well is the point. 🌾

Speaker, consultant and author helping people and organisations work smarter and live better — exploring AI, leadership, sustainability and lifelong learning.

21/08/2026

Bookkeeping and payroll offer accessible, practical career pathways for people at many different stages of life.

For school leavers, they can provide a strong entry point into the finance profession. For career changers or those returning to work, they offer the opportunity to develop valuable, transferable skills. And for aspiring entrepreneurs, they can provide a route to building their own practice and supporting clients with essential financial services.

We created Be More Bookkeeper as a free introduction for anyone considering the profession and wanting to understand where it could lead.

Through our work at the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, we see every day the breadth of opportunities available across bookkeeping, payroll, qualifications, apprenticeships, employment and practice.

The profession is evolving rapidly through technology, automation and AI, creating an even greater need for people with strong financial skills, sound judgement and the confidence to support businesses well.

We’re proud to offer Be More Bookkeeper as a free starting point and would love it to reach anyone who may be considering bookkeeping or payroll as their next step.

A free e-learning course from the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. A realistic introduction to the profession. Free, self-paced, around 2 hours. Decide whether a future in bookkeeping is right for you.