What Is the ACCA Ethics and Professional Skills Module?
The EPSM is a compulsory part of qualifying as an ACCA member that many students leave too late. Here's what it involves, when to do it, and why it complements the Strategic Professional exams.
The Ethics and Professional Skills Module — the EPSM — is a compulsory online module every ACCA student must complete to qualify as a member. It's separate from the exams but sits alongside them, developing the practical skills employers expect: ethical judgement, communication, commercial awareness, analysis and scepticism. Content and format are updated periodically, so check the current version on the ACCA website.
What it involves
The EPSM is a series of interactive online units built around realistic workplace scenarios, ending in a case-study assessment. Rather than testing recall, it asks you to apply professional skills to practical situations — the same skills the Strategic Professional exams reward. It's designed to be worked through over a number of hours, at your own pace.
When to do it
ACCA recommends completing the EPSM before or alongside the Strategic Professional exams, and there's a good reason: the professional skills it builds are exactly what those exams test. Students who leave it until the very end miss the chance to let it sharpen their exam technique — and sometimes find it holds up their membership after the exams are done.
Why it complements the exams
The professional marks in Strategic Professional exams reward analysis, scepticism, commercial acumen and clear communication — the precise competencies the EPSM develops. Treating the module as practice for those marks, rather than a box to tick, makes it doubly valuable.
Those professional and application skills only turn into exam marks if your written answers actually demonstrate them. The 50% Club marks your practice ACCA answers against the official ACCA scheme, showing exactly where you've shown — or missed — the professional skills the EPSM builds, so they translate into marks on exam day.