Chief Financial Officer/Finance Director
Job summary: The most senior role in the finance function. The CFO or FD oversees all aspects of the finance function, providing strategic direction and leadership.
Qualities/skills needed:
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills
- Leadership skills
- A strategic mindset
- Critical thinker, with the ability to challenge and persuade others
- Ability to delegate and prioritise
Typical tasks:
- Leading and mentoring the finance team
- Oversee budgeting, forecasting and financial planning
- Identify financial risks and implement measures to mitigate them
- Reporting to the board and liaising with external stakeholders
- Oversee their organisation’s investment strategies, leading on any mergers and acquisitions, divestitures or capital investments
- Ensuring compliance with financial regulations, standards and internal policies
Careers advice for this role:
Finance Business Partner
Job summary: Working with teams and stakeholders across your organisation to provide tailored and timely key financial information and advice. You will provide fresh insights into the organisation’s data, telling the story behind the numbers and bringing them to life.
Qualities/skills needed:
- Experience in forecasting, budgeting and presenting financial information to a non-finance audience
- Strong commercial awareness and advanced IT skills in Excel
- Ability to influence and challenge budget holders
- A professional accounting qualification is usually required, along with relevant experience in finance and business partnering.
Typical tasks:
- Acting as a liaison between the finance team and other departments, translating financial data into actionable insights for non-financial managers.
- Providing regular financial insights and analysis, working closely with operational partners to support them with strategic decision-making
- Creating realistic, up-to-date forecasts and budgets
- Identifying upcoming risks and opportunities
- Building financial models to assist with scenario planning and decision-making processes
- Providing regular financial reports to senior management, budget holders and other stakeholders, presenting insights clearly and concisely
Careers advice for this role:
Finance Manager
Job summary: Finance Managers oversee the work of the finance team, managing production of regular financial budgets, reports, forecasts and reconciliations. They should also provide training and development for finance staff, including setting performance objectives and conducting appraisals.
Qualities needed:
- Able to multi-task and work under pressure to tight deadlines
- Strong financial integrity
- People management experience and excellent communication skills
- Finance Managers usually hold a recognised accountancy qualification and have experience in using relevant software, such as Sage and Excel
Typical tasks:
- Produce rolling cash forecasts and updates on financial forecasts
- Run monthly payrolls (or review reports provided by external payroll provider)
- Managing month-end and year-end closing processes
- Oversee day-to-day financial operations, including invoicing and accounts receivable/payable
- Produce quarterly VAT returns
- Prepare annual budgets
- Provide variance analysis and explanations for budget deviations
- Liaise with exernal auditors during annual audits
- Ensure compliance with regulatory standards
Careers advice for this role:
Financial Accountant
Job summary: Financial Accountants play a critical role in managing and reporting on an organization's financial activities. As a key part of the accounting team, they focus on preparing accurate financial reports and ensuring compliance.
Qualities needed:
- Able to multi-task and work under pressure to tight deadlines
- Analytical and problem-solving skills
- Financial Accountants usually hold a recognised accountancy qualification and have experience in using relevant software, such as Sage, Oracle, QuickBooks and Excel
- Strong communication skills
Typical tasks:
- Preparing financial statements, in compliance with statutory requirements and accounting standards.
- Preparing budgets and financial forecasts
- Cashflow reporting
- Manage VAT returns and ensure compliance with tax regulations.
- Reconciling accounts and bank statements
- Analyzing financial performance and providing insights to support business decisions
- Reporting financial information to senior management and other internal stakeholders
- Support internal and external audits
Financial Analyst
Job summary: A Financial Analyst helps businesses make informed financial decisions. They analyze financial data and trends to provide insights that aid with decision-making processes. The Financial Analyst will often need business partnering skills as they will work closely with stakeholders across their organization to provide advice and guidance.
Qualities/skills needed:
- Analytical and detail orientated
- Naturally inquisitive
- Full or partial professional accounting qualification usually needed
- Financial modelling skills
- Experience using software such as Power BI, Excel, Tableau and Powerpoint
- Open to learning new technologies and programming languages
- Ability to communicate well, bringing ‘numbers to life’ for non-finance staff
Typical tasks:
- Collect and analyze relevant financial data
- Provide detailed monthly reports and insights for stakeholders
- Track and monitor financial performance against targets
- Develop and maintain financial models to produce reliable forecasts
- Evaluate investment opportunities
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Financial Controller
Job summary: A senior finance role, typically involving people management, ownership of financial reporting processes, strategic planning and commercial analysis. The Financial Controller usually reports to the Chief Financial Officer/Finance Director or directly to the company’s executive team.
Qualities/skills needed:
- Excellent presentation skills – with the ability to communicate complex financial information to non-finance staff
- Proficiency in financial software, with advanced Excel modelling skills desirable
- Leadership skills and experience of managing a team
- Able to delegate, collaborate and work under pressure to tight deadlines
- Strong knowledge of financial standards and statutory reporting
Typical tasks:
- Managing the finance team, putting in place effective training and development
- Assisting the CFO/FD in regular liaising with the board and presenting financial reports
- Preparing timely financial statements, budgets and forecasts
- Ensure quality control over financial transactions and financial reporting
- Development of finance strategy, continuously enhancing finance systems and processes
- Monitor the company’s cash flow and forecast cash requirements
- Carry out detailed financial analysis to support commercial business decisions
- Maintain robust internal control policies, to ensure financial accuracy and safeguard assets
- Overseeing the audit process, liaising with external auditors as required
Careers advice for this role:
Management Accountant
Job summary: A management accountant in the UK is responsible for providing financial reporting, analysis and insights to support decision-making. Their role is vital to the organisation's strategic planning and financial health.
Qualities/skills needed:
- Analytical skills
- Strategic thinking
- Experience in preparing financial statements and budgets
- Proficiency in using accounting and financial management software (eg SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks, Excel)
Typical tasks:
- Producing monthly management accounts
- Preparing annual budgets and creating financial forecasting
- Performing variance analysis and making recommendations for corrective actions
- Providing financial analysis and advice on business decisions
- Overseeing financial aspects of projects
- Identifying financial risks and maintaining internal control systems
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and accounting standards
Careers advice for this role:
Everything business
