B4 Financial Services vs Broader Commercial Audit as Route into Equity/Credit Research (London/Australia)?

Hi Everyone,

I'm a long-time lurker, and for what it's worth I'm quite excited to be posting my fist-ever thread on here. After much perusal, I haven't really seen this question asked on these forums before, and to be honest I'm stressing out like crazy about this right now.

So here's my situation: I'm starting a job at the Big 4 this September in Financial Services Assurance/Audit in London. It's important to preface the following by stating that I'm extremely happy to even have this job - although I went to two of the top five universities in the UK and got pretty good grades, I barely have any work experience whatsoever (due to a host of reasons, but mostly because of my lack of foresight/ignorance), and for all but one month I have been unemployed since I finished my master's degree (in international politics, no less) in October 2018. I'm super pumped to be on a track to somewhere, and I'm looking to build on this momentum going forward and to make up for a lot of lost time.

Here's the problem: After obtaining my qualification, I would ideally wish to try to break into equity/credit research; it seems like it requires all the skills (quantitative, writing, people) that I feel are my strong points. The thing is though, that I'm afraid I might have shot myself in the foot by starting with FS assurance rather than the more general, commercial auditing option that I was also presented with. Reading a lot of these threads, it appears as though not only are the hours much worse within FS assurance, but the exit options resulting from it are also much narrower, and are largely restricted to BO roles at banks. This includes equity research - after all, what use would an ER team have for someone who hasn't analysed the financial statements of the companies for which they are going to have to write reports on?

Here are my questions for you guys: (1) Is my above analysis /wrt exit options from these sub-sectors of the audit profession accurate? (2) If so, what would you advise me to do, in addition to obtaining the CFA level 1 certificate (which I am already studying for in preparation for the exam this December)? Should I attempt to transfer over to the broader, commercial auditing group within the firm after the first busy season? Does it just not matter due to the fact that an internal move to CF is most likely required anyway before eventually transitioning into ER?

My apologies for sounding anxious, but due to my lack of foresight in the past, I have now become something of a control-freak. I want to make sure that I'm going down the right path, and that my efforts are going to lead to something fruitful.

Thank you all in advance.

P.S. The reason I mentioned Australia in the title is because I would very much like to move back to the country in around 3-5 years' time. I spent most of my childhood there, and have a very, very strong affinity for it. Not sure when that would fit into the above timeline, but I'll definitely make it work.