This section contains job description templates for the finance and accountancy roles that Accountancy Capital recruits, plus the supporting roles around them. Each covers responsibilities, qualifications, reporting line and how the role connects to the rest of the finance function. They are written for employers who are drafting a brief for an upcoming hire, and for finance professionals who want to understand what a role formally involves before applying or interviewing.
The job descriptions are grouped below by level: leadership, control and management, qualified specialist, and transactional and payroll. The qualified and senior finance roles are the ones Accountancy Capital places day to day, typically at £50,000 and above. The transactional and entry-level roles are included for reference, because employers hiring a Financial Controller or Finance Manager often need to review the scope of the team that person will lead. Salary figures below are typical London base salaries taken from our accountancy salary guides; regional salaries are usually lower.
Leadership Roles
The senior finance roles that own the numbers, the controls and, at the top, the finance strategy. Finance Director and CFO searches usually run with our sister firm FD Capital, part of FD Capital Group; Head of Finance and Financial Controller roles are core Accountancy Capital work.
| Job description | What it covers | Typical London base |
|---|---|---|
| Finance Director | Finance strategy, board reporting, funding and the finance function as a whole, with statutory director duties where the FD sits on the board. | £95k–£205k+ |
| Head of Finance | The senior finance lead below board level, often the first senior hire, combining control with commercial support to the leadership team. | £68k–£120k |
| Financial Controller | Month-end close, statutory accounts, audit, controls, cash and the finance team, with variations for first, PE-backed, group and regulated FCs. | £65k–£115k |
Control and Management Roles
The qualified layer that runs the monthly cycle, produces management information and partners the business.
| Job description | What it covers | Typical London base |
|---|---|---|
| Finance Manager | Day-to-day running of the finance function: management accounts, reconciliations, VAT, payroll oversight and a small team. | £55k–£95k |
| Finance Business Partner | Commercial support to budget holders: performance analysis, forecasting, pricing and decision support. | £60k–£110k |
| FP&A Manager | Budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis and board reporting, often owning the financial model. | £62k–£108k |
| Management Accountant | Monthly management accounts, cost analysis, budgets and the reporting pack behind business decisions. | £50k–£85k |
| Financial Accountant | Statutory accounts, audit files, balance sheet reconciliations, technical accounting and group reporting. | £52k–£95k |
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Ready to brief us on a qualified finance hire? A consultant will respond the same working day.
Qualified Specialist Roles
Roles that need a particular technical skill set, from tax and audit to client money and fund accounting. Several sit inside FCA-regulated firms, where we also run regulated finance recruitment; senior manager function appointments such as SMF16 and SMF17 run through our sister firm SMF Capital.
| Job description | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Corporate Tax Manager | Corporation tax compliance, provisions, planning and HMRC relationships for a company or group. |
| VAT Manager | VAT returns, partial exemption, cross-border VAT, controls and HMRC enquiries, with salary benchmarks. |
| Tax Senior | Preparing returns and computations under a Tax Manager, usually while studying for CTA or ATT. |
| Internal Audit | Risk-based audit plans, control testing and reporting to the audit committee. |
| Fund Accountant | NAV calculations, fund reporting, investor allocations and administrator oversight, with a salary guide. |
| CASS Accountant | Client money and asset reconciliations, CASS resolution packs and audit support in FCA-regulated firms. |
| Corporate Finance Executive | Transaction support, valuations, financial models and deal documentation. |
| FP&A Analyst | Forecast models, variance analysis and reporting packs under an FP&A Manager, with salary guidance. |
Transactional and Payroll Roles
Accountancy Capital does not recruit at this level: our focus is qualified finance roles from around £50,000. We publish these templates because a clear transactional structure is part of building a finance team that works.
| Job description | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Accounts Assistant | Invoices, payments, ledgers, bank reconciliations, expenses and month-end support. |
| Bookkeeper | Keeping the books up to date in a smaller business, often covering ledgers, VAT returns and payroll. |
| Purchase Ledger Clerk | Supplier invoices, matching, payment runs and supplier statement reconciliations. |
| Sales Ledger Clerk | Invoicing, cash allocation, credit control, aged debt and customer disputes. |
| Payroll Clerk | Payroll runs, RTI submissions, starters and leavers, statutory payments and auto-enrolment. |
| Payroll Manager | Owning payroll end to end: team, HMRC compliance, year end, pensions, benefits in kind and controls. |
How to Use These Job Descriptions
Each job description on this site is a starting template, not a definitive specification for every business. The Financial Controller job description, for example, covers the responsibilities the FC role carries in most UK businesses, but the scope varies considerably depending on whether there is an FD or CFO above the FC, how large and experienced the finance team is, whether the business is owner-managed or private equity-backed, and whether it is FCA-regulated. Edit it to describe your role, not the average role.
The most common mistake in writing a finance job description is over-specifying systems experience. Making a named accounting system a must-have narrows the candidate pool without a proportionate benefit, because a qualified finance professional will usually learn a new system within weeks. An unrealistically high minimum years of experience screens out capable candidates and, as explained below, can create legal risk.
The job description is also a marketing document. It is the first impression many candidates will have of your business. A list of requirements with no context about the business, the team or the opportunity will consistently underperform one that makes the role sound worth doing. If you are using a recruiter, our guide on how to brief a finance recruitment agency explains how the job description and the brief work together.
How to Write a Good Finance Job Description
A good job description starts before anyone opens a template. Work through these steps with the hiring manager.
- Define the problem the hire solves. A late month-end close, an audit that keeps overrunning, a board that wants better forecasting: the answer shapes whether you need a Financial Controller, a Finance Manager or an FP&A lead.
- Separate day one from year one. Note what the role must deliver in three months and own within twelve.
- Split essential from desirable. Keep essentials to the few criteria you would genuinely reject a candidate for lacking. Everything else is desirable.
- Check the salary against the market. Compare the budget with the relevant guide, such as the Financial Controller salary guide, before the advert goes live.
- Plan how you will assess it. Map each essential criterion to an interview question or task.
That final step is often missed. Our competency-based finance interview questions and the role-specific guide to Financial Controller interview questions show how to turn a job description into a structured interview.
What to Include in a Job Description
Every template in this library follows this structure; use it as a checklist.
| Section | What to cover |
|---|---|
| Job details | Title, location and hybrid pattern, permanent, interim or fractional, hours, reporting line and salary. |
| About the business | Sector, size, ownership, stage of growth and why the role exists now. |
| Purpose of the role | Two or three sentences on what the role is for. |
| Key responsibilities | Eight to twelve specific duties, most important first. |
| Team and relationships | Direct reports, key internal stakeholders, auditors, advisers and regulators. |
| Qualifications and experience | Professional qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA, CTA, CIPP), technical knowledge and sector experience, split essential and desirable. |
| Skills and attributes | Communication, leadership, systems and analytical skills, described as behaviours. |
| Success measures | What good looks like at six and twelve months. |
| Package and how to apply | Salary range, bonus, pension, holiday, study support, flexible working and the application route. |
For context on what qualified members are trained to do, see ICAEW, ACCA and CIMA for accountants. In most roles, accepting any of the three is right; our comparison of ACA vs ACCA vs CIMA explains the differences.
Advertising Law Basics
A job description becomes a legal document as soon as it is used to advertise a role or assess candidates. The main points for UK employers are set out below. This is a summary, not legal advice; Acas publishes free guidance for employers on recruiting fairly.
The Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against job applicants because of a protected characteristic: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. Discrimination can be indirect: a requirement that disadvantages one group is unlawful unless objectively justified. Employers must also make reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates during recruitment.
Avoid age-coded and other loaded language
Age-coded wording is the most common problem in finance adverts, and it rarely looks discriminatory to the person writing it.
| Avoid | Use instead |
|---|---|
| “Young, dynamic team” | “A fast-moving, collaborative team” |
| “Recent graduate” or “digital native” | “Confident with cloud accounting and Excel” |
| “Minimum 15 years’ experience” or “no more than 5 years’ PQE” | “Experience of running a month-end close and audit” |
| “Mature” or “energetic” | “Calm under deadline pressure” or “proactive” |
| “Native English speaker” | “Excellent written and spoken English” |
| “He will manage” or “salesman”-style wording | Gender-neutral wording: “you will manage”, “the post-holder” |
Describe the capability you need, not a proxy for it: what someone has done, not how long they have been doing it.
Right to work and data protection
Every employer must check a job applicant’s right to work before employment starts, and should apply the check consistently to every candidate rather than only to some. Candidate data collected during recruitment is personal data under UK GDPR, so tell applicants how it will be used and how long it will be kept.
Pay Transparency Good Practice
UK law does not currently require employers to publish a salary in a job advert, but stating a salary range is good practice and, in our experience, one of the simplest ways to improve the response to a finance role. “Competitive salary” tells a qualified candidate nothing.
- Publish a realistic range. A band of around 10% to 20% is credible; a band from £50,000 to £90,000 is not.
- Base the range on the market. Use the relevant salary guide and current adverts, not the previous post-holder’s pay.
- Avoid asking for salary history. Anchoring on past pay can carry forward historic pay gaps.
- Keep pay decisions consistent. Employers with 250 or more employees must already publish gender pay gap reporting, and transparent pay bands make that easier to defend.
Remember the full employer cost too: employer’s National Insurance rose to 15% from April 2025, and pension and benefits sit on top. Our guide to the true cost of a finance team hire works through the numbers.
Job Descriptions and Salary Guides Together
Job descriptions define the scope; salary guides define the market rate. The two should always be reviewed together before starting a search. A well-written Financial Controller job description that specifies the right scope and qualifications is of limited value if the salary budget attached to it is well below what the market pays for that profile, a common cause of slow searches and declined offers. Our Finance Manager salary guide, Finance Business Partner salary guide and Management Accountant salary guide sit alongside the job descriptions above.
If you are unsure whether you need a Finance Manager or a Financial Controller, our guide on how to hire a Financial Controller walks through the process end to end.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a job description and a person specification?
The job description sets out what the role does; the person specification sets out what is needed to do it. Our templates combine both.
Should a job description include a salary?
It is not a legal requirement in the UK, but a realistic range attracts more relevant applicants and saves time at offer stage.
Which roles does Accountancy Capital recruit?
Qualified finance roles below director level, typically from £50,000: Financial Controllers, Heads of Finance, Finance Managers, management and financial accountants, FP&A, tax and FCA-regulated finance, on a permanent, interim or fractional basis. Permanent shortlists typically arrive within one to two weeks, and interim and fractional shortlists within days. Fees are agreed in writing before a search starts.
Adrian Lawrence FCA — Founder, Accountancy Capital
Fellow of the ICAEW | Chartered Accountant holding an ICAEW practising certificate | Part of FD Capital Group
Adrian is a former listed-company Finance Director with a BSc from Queen Mary College, University of London. The most useful thing a job description can do is force a clear view of what the business needs before the search begins; these templates are built to support that conversation.
Related Pages and Resources
Hiring Guides
Step-by-step employer guides for qualified finance hires.
→ How to Hire a Financial Controller
Role Guides
What each role involves day to day.
→ The Financial Controller Role
Brief a Hire — 0204 553 8893
Accountancy Capital, one of the five specialist firms of FD Capital Group, places qualified finance professionals across the UK, permanent, interim and fractional. Call us, email recruitment@accountancycapital.co.uk or submit a brief online and a consultant will respond the same working day. Offices in London (167–169 Great Portland Street, W1W 5PF) and the West Midlands (Watling Court, Orbital Plaza, Watling Street, Cannock WS11 0EL).