Senior Financial Planning and Analysis Manager

Our FTSE 250 listed client is seeking a qualified Senior FP&A Manager to join their finance team on a 12 month fixed term contract. This is a hybrid role with 4 days onsite in their offices.

Objectives:

• Deliver effective, scenario-driven financial planning and forecasting
• Produce timely, accurate and insightful internal reporting and contribute high-quality analysis, commentary and credible KPIs to the Group’s external reporting – seeking to simplify and streamline where possible.
• Drive measurable strategic, operational and capital outcomes through forward looking commercial analysis, taking clear ownership of the decision cycle.
• Drive measurable outcomes on pricing and margin, working closely with Finance Business Partners.
• Move from gathering and documenting activity to quantifying value delivered, tracking benefits post go-live and driving measurable outcome KPIs.
• Minimise time spent on routine reporting through automation, focusing capacity on high-value insight, real-time interventions and forward-looking analysis.
• Own the integrity, governance and continuous improvement of FP&A data and systems.
• Lead or co-lead defined projects within the Finance calendar and act as a credible business partner to senior stakeholders.

Main Responsibilities:

Financial Planning & Strategic Analysis

• Lead or contribute to the preparation of the annual budget, periodic reforecasts and the five-year Strategic Plan including scenario and sensitivity analysis.
• Proactive partnership with Operations, Sales, Asset Management and Facilities Management providing constructive challenge and commercial insight.
• Support corporate activity (equity raises, debt refinancing, acquisitions, disposals and M&A reviews), including the preparation of information memoranda, financial projections, covenant modelling and due diligence outputs.
• Build and maintain investment appraisal models.

Financial Reporting(Internal & External)

• Project-lead or contribute to the production of quarterly trading statements, the Half Year and Full Year results, including the Business Review, Results Presentation and Annual Report and Accounts, and associated audit and verification work.
• Draft clear, concise and commercially balanced reporting commentary for external publication, working with senior stakeholders to ensure the narrative is consistent with underlying performance and key messages.
• Own the preparation, validation and supporting evidence for quarterly and results -period operational KPIs, ensuring externally reported measures are accurate, credible, consistently defined and capable of withstanding audit and investor scrutiny.
• Produce weekly, monthly and quarterly performance reporting – including the Flash Pack, Board Performance Pack, Weekly Trading Review, capex tracking, NBI reporting and business unit performance packs – ensuring outputs are accurate, timely, forward looking and insight-led. The supporting commentaries should be action orientated, brief, concise with strong commercial bias.
• Support the preparation of technical notes for the financial statements (e.g. IFRS 13 Fair Value, Schedule of Capital Commitments) and engage constructively with external auditors on queries, controls testing and walkthroughs.

Business Partnering & Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as the FP&A point of contact for one or more business areas, building credibility through commercial dialogue rather than data provision alone.
• Prepare and present analysis to senior stakeholders – including the Executive Leadership Team, Audit Committee, Investment / Minor Capex Committee and external parties such as auditors, valuers, rating agencies and relationship banks – in a clear, concise and board-ready manner.
• Translate complex financial information into clear messaging that drives business outcomes and influences operational decision-making by non-finance stakeholders in real time, not retrospectively.

Data, Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Own or co-own elements of the FP&A data and systems landscape, ensuring data quality, security and integrity.
• Identify and deliver process improvement and automation opportunities (including use of AI) to minimise time spent on routine reporting, enable faster responsiveness and decision-making, and generate predictive and prescriptive insight that frees up capacity for higher-value analysis.
• Embed lean principles and a culture of continuous improvement across the team's ways of working, championing the "value-add" agenda by routinely challenging existing processes against a Stop / Simplify / Continue lens and bringing forward practical AI or technology interventions that influence operational decision-making in real time (e.g. anomaly detection, commentary, scenario modelling, dashboard-led variance analysis).
• Contribute to the development and embedding of the data lake and CRM/Finance integration roadmap