Accountancy Capital places Finance Directors across the UK at £95,000 and above — permanent, interim and fractional. The Finance Director is the most senior finance appointment in most mid-market businesses and one of the most consequential hires any board makes. The FD sits at the board table, owns the strategic financial plan, manages the investor and banking relationships, provides commercial financial challenge to the CEO and leads the finance function. When the FD relationship is working well, the CEO has a financial partner who grounds commercial ambition in financial reality and who gives the board the independent financial intelligence it needs. When it is not working well, the board is left relying on financial information it produces but does not fully trust, and on commercial decisions made without the rigorous financial analysis that a capable FD would provide.
Accountancy Capital’s Finance Director practice covers permanent, interim and fractional FD appointments. We engage directly with FD-level candidates — through personal relationships and direct outreach rather than job board advertising — because the most capable Finance Directors are not found through advertising. They are found through the kind of direct, informed engagement with a candidate population that a specialist recruiter builds over years of active practice in the senior finance market.
What the FD Appointment Must Deliver
Every Finance Director appointment has a different specific brief — some are replacing a departing FD, some are establishing the FD function for the first time above an existing FC, some are providing financial leadership through a PE investment or a transaction — but every successful FD appointment delivers the same five outcomes.
Strategic financial plan. The FD owns the long-range financial model that translates the CEO’s commercial strategy into a financial picture the board and investors can evaluate. This is a distinctly FD-level capability — the three to five year plan, the scenario analysis, the capital requirements forecast — that the FC role does not consistently develop and that the board cannot manage without.
Investor and banking relationships. The FD is the primary financial interface with the PE fund, the institutional investors or the bank. The quality of that interface — the trust the investor has in the financial information, the credibility the FD has in difficult conversations, the proactivity with which financial risks are communicated before they become surprises — directly affects the terms of the financial relationships the business depends on.
Commercial challenge. The FD provides the financial rigour that grounds commercial decisions in financial reality. This means being willing to say ‘the financial model does not support this at the proposed price’ or ‘the working capital implications of this decision have not been fully costed’ in a board discussion where the commercial leadership is enthusiastic about the decision. The FD who does not provide this challenge is not providing the full FD function.
Finance team leadership. The FD builds and leads the finance function — recruiting, structuring, developing and holding accountable the FC, the Finance Manager, the FP&A Manager and the rest of the team. The finance team that performs consistently to a high standard is the FD’s most important structural legacy.
Financial governance. The FD maintains the financial governance framework — the controls environment, the audit relationship, the statutory reporting cycle, the regulatory compliance — that protects the business from financial risk and gives the board the assurance it needs about the accuracy and completeness of the financial records.
Finance Director Salary Benchmarks — 2025
| Business Context | London | South East | Midlands & North |
|---|---|---|---|
| FD — first FD above FC, £10m–£25m | £95k–£130k | £82k–£112k | £73k–£100k |
| FD — owner-managed, £25m–£60m | £115k–£158k | £97k–£135k | £86k–£120k |
| FD — PE-backed, £15m–£60m | £125k–£168k | £105k–£142k | £93k–£127k |
| Group FD — £50m+ multi-entity | £145k–£205k | £122k–£172k | £108k–£153k |
| Interim FD — day rate | £600–£1,000/day | £505–£845/day | £450–£750/day |
| Fractional FD — 2 days/week | £57k–£99k/year | £48k–£84k/year | £42k–£75k/year |
PE-backed FD packages include target bonuses of 20–35% of base salary and, at some funds, co-investment or management equity participation. See the Accountancy Capital Salary Guides for full pay data.
Brief a Finance Director Search
Accountancy Capital places Finance Directors at £95,000 and above across the UK. We respond the same day and give a direct view of the candidate pool and expected timeline before the formal search begins.
Brief a Search → 0204 553 8893
FD Candidate Specification: What We Look For
Board and investor engagement experience. The FD candidate who has presented to an investor board, managed a PE fund reporting cycle or led the financial communication during a fundraising has the investor engagement track record the role requires. We distinguish between candidates who have attended board meetings and those who have presented at them — and between candidates who have managed an investor relationship directly and those who have supported it in preparation.
Commercial financial modelling. The FD who has built, maintained and presented a long-range financial model — a three to five year plan with scenario analysis, used in an investment decision or a board strategy session — demonstrates the strategic financial planning capability that the FD role requires and that the FC role does not always develop.
Finance function leadership. We look specifically for FD candidates who have built or significantly developed a finance function — who have recruited the FC, restructured the team, implemented the systems and built the reporting framework that the function now runs on. The FD who inherited a well-functioning finance team is in a different position from the one who built one.
Transaction experience. At PE-backed and growth-stage businesses, transaction support — acquisition due diligence, exit preparation, fundraising — is a core FD responsibility. We distinguish between FD candidates who have led the financial workstream on a transaction and those who have supported it. The lead role — chairing the financial working group, presenting to the investment committee, managing the data room — provides qualitatively different preparation for the FD appointment than the support role.
The FD Recruitment Market: What to Expect
Finance Director searches at Accountancy Capital are conducted through direct candidate engagement rather than advertising. The most capable FD candidates are not responding to job board advertisements; they are in roles or are engaging with the market through trusted recruiters who know their background and ambitions. The shortlists we produce for FD searches reflect this — they include candidates who are not on the market in any visible sense, who are being presented with this specific opportunity because it aligns specifically with what they are looking for in their next appointment.
The expected timeline for a permanent FD search is eight to twelve weeks from brief to offer. The most common causes of extension beyond this are: a salary that is below market for the scope and ownership structure; a decision process that requires multiple board approvals before an offer is made; or a brief that is too broad to allow targeted outreach — ‘we need a strong FD’ without specific articulation of what the FD needs to deliver in the first twelve months. A specific, well-priced brief with a fast decision process at the board level will complete at the lower end of this range.
Where an FD is needed urgently — because the existing FD has departed and the permanent search will take eight to twelve weeks — Accountancy Capital can place an Interim Finance Director within one to two weeks to provide continuity while the permanent search runs in parallel.
Fractional Finance Director
For businesses of £8m–£30m that need FD-level financial leadership on a part-time basis — approaching PE investment, managing a bank refinancing, or providing board-level financial governance without the full-time cost — the Fractional Finance Director provides qualified FD oversight on a one to two day per week monthly retainer. Cost: £28,000–£99,000 per year depending on days per week and seniority. Compare with £120,000–£200,000 all-in for a permanent FD at equivalent London market rates.
London Finance Director Recruitment
London has the UK’s deepest FD market, driven by the concentration of PE-backed businesses, venture-backed technology companies and multi-entity corporate groups. Accountancy Capital’s London FD candidate network is particularly strong at the PE-backed business level and at the growth-stage technology business level where demand is highest and the candidate profile is most specific. See London Finance Director Recruitment.
A Note from Our Founder — Adrian Lawrence FCA
The FD appointment is the most commercially important senior finance decision most boards make. I have seen FD appointments that transformed the business’s financial management — where the incoming FD built an investor relationship that significantly improved the bank terms, where they identified a strategic financial risk the board had not seen, where they developed an FC into an FD in their own right within three years — and I have seen FD appointments that underdelivered because the scope was wrong, the salary was too low, or the board did not invest in the relationship in the way the FD function requires.
The most important single investment a board can make in a Finance Director search is the specificity of the brief. ‘We need a strong FD’ is not a brief. ‘We need a Finance Director who will own the PE reporting cycle, build the long-range financial model that will support our Series B in eighteen months and develop the FC to the point where the FC can own the board reporting independently within twelve months’ is a brief. The second produces a targeted search, a stronger shortlist and a better appointment. It also produces a better onboarding conversation — the FD who knows specifically what they have been appointed to do is more effective in the first hundred days than one given a broad mandate and left to define their own priorities. See the Finance Director First 100 Days guide for the framework.
Adrian Lawrence FCA
Founder, Accountancy Capital — Qualified finance recruitment specialists, £50,000 and above. Adrian is a Fellow of the ICAEW — verify via ICAEW.
Finance Director vs CFO: Which Title Does Your Business Need?
Many businesses are uncertain whether to appoint a Finance Director or a Chief Financial Officer. The title choice is not merely semantic — it signals the seniority and scope of the appointment to candidates, to investors and to the board. As a general principle: Finance Director is the more common title at owner-managed and mid-market businesses of £10m–£100m revenue where the finance leader’s primary accountability is to the CEO and the board of the operating business. CFO is more common at PE-backed businesses, listed or listed-adjacent businesses, and businesses above £50m revenue where the finance leader is accountable to an institutional investor or a formal audit committee as well as to the CEO. See Finance Director vs CFO — What’s the Difference? for the full decision framework, and the CFO Recruitment page for appointments at the higher end of the senior finance market.
The First Finance Director Appointment
For businesses that are appointing their first Finance Director above an existing Financial Controller — typically at £12m–£25m revenue, often triggered by PE investment or by the business reaching a scale where the FC is performing FD scope without the FD title or the FD authority — the appointment requires specific preparation. The brief should articulate clearly what the first FD will need to do that the current FC cannot do: typically board presentation, investor relationship management, strategic financial planning and the commercial challenge of the CEO that the FC does not have the seniority or the mandate to provide. Without that articulation, the search will attract FC candidates performing at the top of their current role rather than genuine FD-level professionals. Accountancy Capital provides a specific briefing service for first FD appointments that covers the right specification, the right salary and the right process. Call 0204 553 8893 to discuss before going to market.
Succession Planning: Developing the FC into the FD Role
In some businesses, the right Finance Director appointment is not a new hire but the development of the existing Financial Controller into the FD role — a promotion that provides the FC with the title, the authority and the compensation that matches the FD scope they may already be performing. Accountancy Capital advises on this succession question regularly, and our consistent observation is that the businesses which get the most from the internal promotion route are those that make it formally and completely — with the FD title, the board seat, the salary at FD market rate and the explicit mandate to operate at FD level — rather than those that promote the FC in substance while maintaining the FC in title and compensation. See From Financial Controller to Finance Director for the specific development framework and What Boards Look for When Appointing a Finance Director for the capability assessment criteria.
Finance Director Recruitment: The Candidate’s Perspective
Understanding what Finance Director candidates look for in a new appointment is as important as understanding what employers want from the FD. FD candidates at £95,000–£160,000 are typically highly selective: they are not applying to every FD role that appears, they are looking for the specific opportunity that represents a meaningful step in their career. The factors they weight most heavily are: the quality of the investor relationship — a PE-backed business with an active and engaged fund is more attractive to an ambitious FD than an owner-managed business where the FD relationship is primarily internal; the strength of the FC or finance team below the FD — the FD who inherits a competent FC has more capacity for the strategic dimensions of the role than one who inherits a team that requires intensive remediation; the quality of the CEO relationship — the CEO who genuinely wants and will use the FD’s financial challenge is more attractive than the one who wants a senior financial controller; and the commercial trajectory of the business — the FD wants to be associated with a business that is going somewhere.
Accountancy Capital represents these factors to candidates when introducing briefs. The FD brief that scores well on all four of these dimensions — or that has a compelling enough commercial story to compensate for a weaker dimension — consistently attracts stronger candidates than the brief that relies primarily on salary as the main draw.
The First FD Above the FC: Getting the Hierarchy Right
When a business appoints its first Finance Director above an existing Financial Controller, the management of the FC’s relationship with the incoming FD is one of the most important factors in the success of the appointment. The FC who has been performing FD-scope work — presenting to the board, managing the investor relationship, leading the year-end — and who now has an FD above them needs to understand clearly what scope they retain and what moves to the FD. If this is not managed explicitly, the FC will either feel that their scope has been reduced without discussion (a retention risk), or the FD will find that the FC is continuing to perform tasks that should sit with the FD (a clarity risk).
Accountancy Capital advises clients managing this transition specifically — on how to have the scope conversation with the existing FC, on how to structure the FD’s first meeting with the FC, and on what the FD’s first-thirty-day plan should include in terms of the FC relationship. See the Finance Director First 100 Days guide for the detailed framework and the CEO-FD Relationship guide for the CEO-FD engagement model that makes the whole structure work.
Related Services and Resources
| FD Recruitment Finance Director and related pages. | Interim & Fractional FD Non-permanent FD options. | What Boards Look For FD appointment capability criteria. | FD Resources Guides for Finance Directors. |
Finance Director Recruitment — 0204 553 8893
Accountancy Capital places Finance Directors at £95,000 and above — permanent, interim and fractional. Same-day response on all briefs.