How to Hire a Finance Manager

The Finance Manager hire is one of the most consequential decisions a growing business makes in its first decade. It is typically the point at which finance transitions from a function the founder manages personally or outsources to an external accountant, to a function with dedicated in-house leadership. Get this hire right and it creates the financial infrastructure the business needs to scale. Get it wrong and the problems — late management accounts, poor controls, unreliable cash flow visibility — compound quickly.

This guide covers everything a growing business needs to know before hiring a Finance Manager: what the role should involve, the qualification question, how to write the brief, what to pay, how to run the search, and the common mistakes that lead to a failed hire.

What a Finance Manager Does — and What They Are Not

The Finance Manager title is one of the most variable in the profession. In a large corporate it might describe a mid-level role managing a specific area — a business unit P&L, a cost centre, or a reporting team. In a growing SME it typically means the most senior in-house finance professional, responsible for everything from month-end close to bank reconciliations to the relationship with the external accountant.

For the purposes of this guide, we are focused on the Finance Manager hire in a growing UK business — typically one with £3m–£15m revenue that has outgrown its current finance arrangements (usually a part-time bookkeeper, an external accountant for year-end, and the founder managing cash personally) and needs a dedicated in-house finance professional for the first time or as a significant upgrade.

In this context, the Finance Manager’s core responsibilities typically include: producing monthly management accounts (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow); managing the bookkeeper or accounts assistant beneath them; overseeing payroll, VAT and PAYE compliance; managing the bank relationship day-to-day; producing the cash flow forecast; liaising with the external accountant for year-end and Corporation Tax; and providing financial information to the management team to support decision-making.

What the Finance Manager is not: a Financial Controller, Finance Director or CFO. The distinction matters for hiring because these roles attract different candidates at different salary levels with different experience profiles. A business that advertises a Finance Manager role but expects Financial Controller-level technical depth, or Financial Director-level strategic thinking, will consistently attract the wrong shortlist. The Finance Manager recruitment page covers the typical scope of the role in more detail.

Is a Finance Manager the Right Hire, or Do You Need Something More Senior?

Before committing to a Finance Manager search, it is worth establishing whether a Finance Manager is actually what you need. The answer depends on the complexity and volume of your finance function, and whether you need someone primarily to do financial work or to lead and manage it.

A Finance Manager is typically the right hire when the business has a functioning bookkeeping or accounts payable/receivable process that produces reliable data, but lacks a qualified professional to turn that data into management information, identify issues in the numbers, and provide the management team with the financial clarity they need to run the business. The Finance Manager creates order, structure and reliability where the finance function has been informal or incomplete.

A Financial Controller is the right hire instead of a Finance Manager when the business has grown beyond £10m–£15m revenue, when the statutory accounts and audit management requirement demands a fully qualified accountant, or when the finance team has grown to the point where it needs a more senior leader than a Finance Manager can credibly provide. If your business is in this position, the Financial Controller recruitment page gives more relevant guidance.

An Accounts Assistant or Bookkeeper is the right hire if what you need is someone to do the day-to-day transactional finance work — processing invoices, bank reconciliations, payroll data entry — rather than someone to manage and report on the finances. Hiring a Finance Manager when you actually need a bookkeeper is an expensive way to solve an operational problem, and the Finance Manager will leave within twelve months because the role does not use their skills.

The Qualification Question

Whether to require a professional accounting qualification for a Finance Manager role is one of the most common questions growing businesses ask at this stage. The honest answer is: it depends on what you are asking this person to do.

If the Finance Manager will be responsible for producing the statutory accounts, managing the year-end audit, or preparing Corporation Tax returns, a qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) is effectively a requirement. These are technically demanding tasks that require training and examination that is difficult to replicate without a formal qualification programme.

If the Finance Manager’s role is primarily management accounts, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, and providing financial insight to the management team — with an external accountant still managing the statutory compliance — then a part-qualified or QBE (qualified by experience) candidate can be viable, particularly if the business is at an earlier stage and cannot justify the salary premium that full qualification commands.

The three main UK accountancy qualifications and their relevance at Finance Manager level:

ACA (ICAEW) — the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales qualification. Strong in statutory reporting, audit, and technical accounting under UK GAAP or IFRS. ACA-qualified Finance Managers typically bring a practice background and strong technical rigour. If your business has complex statutory reporting requirements or is about to go through its first external audit, ACA is a strong preference.

ACCA — the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants qualification. Strong all-round commercially oriented qualification. ACCA-qualified Finance Managers are well-suited to businesses that need a broad finance professional capable of both management reporting and compliance work.

CIMA (CGMA) — the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants qualification. The most commercially and management-accounting focused of the three. CIMA-qualified Finance Managers typically excel in producing management information and commercial analysis. If your most pressing need is better management accounts and financial insight rather than statutory compliance, CIMA is often the strongest fit.

AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) is a valid qualification at technician level and produces strong bookkeepers and finance assistants. It is not a full professional qualification at the level required for a Finance Manager role that carries management account or statutory responsibility, though it is a reasonable qualification for a Finance Manager whose work is primarily transactional and reporting at a smaller business.

Salary Benchmarks for Finance Managers in 2025

Finance Manager salaries vary significantly by business size, sector, location and whether the candidate is fully qualified. The table below gives indicative base salary ranges for the UK as at 2025.

Note that a Finance Manager who is effectively covering an FC-level scope — statutory accounts ownership, audit management, full team management — should be compensated at the upper end of these ranges or benchmarked against FC salaries rather than FM salaries. Paying FM rates for FC work is one of the most reliable causes of early attrition at this level.

Writing the Brief and Job Description

The Finance Manager job description needs to do two things simultaneously: accurately describe what the role involves so that you attract candidates who can do it, and communicate enough about the business and its trajectory to attract candidates who want to do it here rather than somewhere else.

Growing businesses consistently underestimate the appeal of the growth story. A Finance Manager joining a £5m business with a credible path to £20m in three years is taking on a role that will expand significantly in scope and seniority during their tenure. That is more interesting to many qualified Finance Managers than a stable FM role at a large corporate where the scope is fixed and narrow. Lead with the business context and the opportunity, not just the list of responsibilities.

The core elements of a Finance Manager job description for a growing business:

• Business context: revenue, sector, stage of growth, ownership structure, number of employees. Candidates at this level assess the business they are joining, not just the role. Be specific and honest.
• Reporting line and team: who does this person report to (CEO, MD, FD?) and do they manage anyone beneath them? The reporting line signals seniority; the team structure signals whether this is a leadership role or an individual contributor role.
• Scope of responsibilities: be specific about what this person will own. “Responsibility for all financial management” tells a candidate nothing. “Monthly management accounts to day 8 close, weekly cash flow report, VAT returns, payroll oversight and bank relationship management” tells them exactly what they are signing up for.
• Qualification requirements: specify whether you require full qualification (ACA/ACCA/CIMA) or will consider part-qualified or QBE candidates. Do not specify a qualification requirement and then reject all part-qualified candidates — decide the requirement before you write the description.
• Systems: mention the accounting software the business uses (Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, NetSuite) as it helps candidates self-select, but do not make specific systems experience a hard requirement unless it is genuinely non-negotiable.
• Salary and benefits: include the salary range. Senior finance candidates at this level do not apply to roles that do not publish a salary, and those that do apply are typically motivated by factors other than the quality of the opportunity.

The Finance Manager job description template on this site provides a structured framework that covers these elements in a format proven to attract strong applications.

The Interview Process

A two-stage interview process is standard for a Finance Manager hire. A technical test is advisable where the role carries management accounts or financial reporting responsibility.

Stage one should explore the candidate’s background, their track record in roles comparable to yours, and their approach to the core challenges of the position. For a Finance Manager role in a growing business, the most revealing questions tend to be around: how they have handled a late or difficult month-end close; how they have built or improved a management accounts process; how they communicate financial performance to non-financial managers; and what they found most challenging about the finance function in their last role.

Technical assessment — a practical exercise testing the candidate’s ability to produce or review management accounts, identify errors in a trial balance, or prepare a cash flow forecast is a reasonable addition for roles that require these skills. The CIMA Global Management Accounting Principles provide a useful competency framework for assessing what “good” looks like at Finance Manager level.

Stage two typically involves meeting the CEO, MD or a key member of the management team, and a more detailed discussion of the role scope, expectations and the business context. At this stage, the candidate should also be asking probing questions — a strong Finance Manager candidate who does not ask about the current close timetable, the accounting software, or the relationship with the external accountant should prompt careful consideration.

References at Finance Manager level should be sought from line managers in recent roles who can speak to the candidate’s technical capability, attention to detail, and ability to manage upwards. The ICAEW member directory, ACCA Find an Accountant, and CIMA member search allow you to verify qualification status before an offer is made.

Common Mistakes When Hiring a Finance Manager

Hiring too junior and expecting too much. A newly qualified accountant in their first in-house role will need significant support and will not immediately produce the quality of management accounts or financial insight you are expecting. If you need someone capable of running the finance function independently from day one, hire an experienced Finance Manager with at least three to five years of post-qualification experience, not a newly qualified candidate who is cheaper but not ready for the level of autonomy you need.

Not explaining the current state of the finance function honestly. Every Finance Manager candidate wants to know the true state of the function they are inheriting. A finance function with no processes, unreliable data and no proper month-end close is not a problem if the candidate knows about it in advance — it is an opportunity to build something. But if you present it as better than it is during the interview and the candidate discovers the reality in week two, you are at risk of losing them within six months.

Over-specifying software requirements. A strong Finance Manager will learn a new accounting system within a few weeks. Making Xero experience a hard requirement when you use Sage, or requiring NetSuite experience for a business that actually uses QuickBooks, narrows your candidate pool for no practical benefit. Specify the system you use so candidates can factor it in, but do not make it a hard filter.

Under-investing in the handover from the external accountant. In many growing businesses, significant institutional knowledge about the finances sits with the external accountant rather than in-house. A structured handover — including access to the nominal ledger history, the year-end workings and the current tax position — is essential for the incoming Finance Manager to get up to speed without a months-long learning curve.

Not thinking about what comes next. The Finance Manager you hire today will, if they are good, grow in capability and expectation over the next two to three years. Think about whether this person will transition into a Financial Controller role as the business grows, or whether you will need to hire above them at some point. Having that conversation honestly during the hiring process significantly improves retention — a Finance Manager who knows the business intends to promote them to FC as it reaches £15m is much more likely to stay than one who discovers only later that the plan was to hire over them.

Further Reading

• ICAEW: UK GAAP Technical Guidance — the technical standards your Finance Manager will work within for management and statutory reporting.
• HMRC: VAT for Businesses — VAT compliance is a core Finance Manager responsibility in most UK businesses.
• CIMA: Global Management Accounting Principles — the competency framework underpinning management accounting at Finance Manager level.
• Companies Act 2006: Duty to Keep Accounting Records — the statutory requirement your Finance Manager is responsible for satisfying.
• HMRC: PAYE for Employers — payroll and PAYE compliance oversight is typically part of the Finance Manager remit in a growing business.