Hire Senior Accountancy and Finance Talent: £50k+ Roles Only

Accountancy Capital recruits qualified finance professionals at £50,000 and above, on a permanent, interim or fractional basis, for growing businesses, private equity-backed groups and FCA-regulated firms across the UK. This page is the map of everything we do: the roles we place, the specialist practices we run, the locations we cover and the resources that help you brief a search well. If you already know what you need, tell us about your hire and a consultant will come back to you the same working day. If you are still shaping the role, start here.

We focus on senior qualified finance because that is where a hiring decision shows up most clearly in the numbers. A strong Financial Controller tightens the close, earns the auditors’ trust and gives the leadership team figures it can act on. A weak hire at the same level costs months of rework. Our job is to help you find the first kind, quickly, and to give you honest advice when the role you have specified is not quite the role you need.

Who We Are and How We Work

Accountancy Capital is a specialist finance recruiter, not a volume agency, and one of the five specialist firms of FD Capital Group. The firm was founded by Adrian Lawrence FCA, a Fellow of the ICAEW and former listed-company Finance Director, and our recruitment team works only on qualified finance appointments. That focus means the people you speak to understand month-end, statutory reporting, controls and audit, and can tell a capable candidate from a well-written CV.

Our process is deliberately simple:

• A proper briefing conversation. We talk through the role, the team it sits in, the systems you use, the reporting line, the package and your timetable.
• Terms agreed in writing. The fee and the scope of the search are confirmed before any work begins.
• A focused shortlist. Candidates are approached from our network and the wider market, interviewed against your brief and checked for the qualifications they claim. Permanent shortlists typically arrive within one to two weeks; interim and fractional shortlists within days.
• Support through to start. We arrange interviews, collect feedback, manage the offer and stay in touch through notice and the first weeks in the role.

The Roles We Recruit

Qualified finance: the core practice

These roles form the professional spine of a finance function, from the first qualified hire in a growing business to group-level leadership.

• Management Accountant: the close, the management pack and the analysis behind it. Often the first £50,000+ hire a growing business makes.
• Financial Accountant: statutory reporting, technical accounting and ownership of the audit file.
• Finance Manager: the day-to-day leader of the function beneath Financial Controller level.
• Finance Business Partner and FP&A: the commercial, budgeting and forecasting side of qualified finance.
• Head of Finance: the senior finance seat in smaller and mid-sized businesses.
• Financial Controller and Group Financial Controller: our deepest specialism, including first FCs for growing businesses and FCs for private equity-backed groups.
• CIPFA-qualified accountants: public services, housing and not-for-profit finance.

Finance Director and CFO appointments are often run alongside our sister firm FD Capital, which specialises in board-level finance. See our Finance Director recruitment and CFO recruitment pages for how these searches work.

Tax

Our tax recruitment practice covers in-house tax roles and moves from practice into industry: corporate tax managers, VAT specialists, employment tax, tax investigations and private client tax. In London, where demand is concentrated, see our London tax recruitment page.

FCA-regulated firms

Finance roles in regulated businesses are different enough to need a practice of their own. Candidates must understand regulatory returns, capital and liquidity, client money and the rules the firm operates under, often set out in the FCA Handbook. We recruit CASS and client money accountants, regulatory reporting specialists and Financial Controllers for FCA-regulated firms across asset management, payments, fintech, insurance intermediaries and investment firms. The whole practice is mapped on our FCA-regulated firms recruitment page.

AI-capable finance teams

Finance teams are changing shape as automation takes over more of the transactional work. We recruit professionals who combine a professional qualification with genuine data and systems fluency, people who can redesign a process rather than simply run it. See AI finance recruitment.

Permanent, Interim or Fractional: Choosing the Engagement

Almost every role above can be filled in three ways, and part of our job is helping you choose the right one before the search starts.

Permanent hiring builds the team and is the right answer for roles the business will need for years. Interim recruitment solves time-bound problems with experienced professionals on day rates. Fractional finance buys senior expertise by the day: an experienced fractional Financial Controller or Finance Manager one or two days a week, for businesses that need the seniority but not yet the full-time cost. If interim or fractional work is in scope, make sure both sides understand how the off-payroll working rules (IR35) apply to the engagement. If you are unsure which model fits, the briefing call usually settles it in a few minutes.

What Good Senior Finance Candidates Look Like

At £50,000 and above, a qualification is the starting point rather than the decision. Most roles ask for a recognised professional qualification such as the ICAEW ACA, ACCA or CIMA, or equivalent experience. What separates candidates is evidence of ownership: did they run the close or contribute to it, did they build the control framework or inherit it, and can they explain the numbers to a managing director who is not an accountant?

We assess candidates against those questions before you see a CV. That includes the systems they have worked with, the size and complexity of the businesses they have worked in, how they handled the audit, and whether their salary expectations and notice period fit your timetable. It is also why our shortlists are short: three or four people you would genuinely consider hiring, rather than a long list you have to sift yourself.

Common Hiring Situations We Help With

Most of our briefs fall into a handful of recognisable situations. Knowing which one you are in usually points to the right role and the right type of hire.

• The first qualified hire. A growing business has outgrown its bookkeeper and external accountant, and needs someone to own the month-end and the management accounts. Our guide to the first Financial Controller for a growing business explains when that should be an FC and when a Finance Manager is enough.
• Investment or a change of ownership. Private equity investors expect faster, more reliable reporting from day one. See Financial Controllers for PE-backed companies.
• A sudden gap. A resignation, long-term sickness or parental leave leaves the close unowned. An interim Financial Controller keeps it running while the permanent search goes ahead.
• A function that needs rebuilding. Late accounts, audit adjustments or a failed systems project call for someone who has fixed a finance function before, not just run one.

If your situation does not fit neatly into any of these, that is normal. Describe it on the briefing call and we will tell you honestly what kind of person we think will solve it.

Where We Recruit

We recruit across the UK from offices in London (167–169 Great Portland Street) and the West Midlands (Cannock), with dedicated market pages for London, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge. The full list is on our locations page, and our sectors page explains how finance roles differ by industry. Hybrid and remote working is now common in qualified finance, and our candidate network reflects it.

Resources for Hiring Well

Three libraries support every search on this site. Our salary guides benchmark each role we place, including the Financial Controller salary guide. The job description library gives you a proper specification to start from rather than a blank page. And the Knowledge Centre brings together our guides on hiring, interviewing and structuring finance teams. Our case studies show how recent searches ran in practice.

For Candidates

If you are a qualified finance professional, or a finalist close to qualifying, our jobs board lists the permanent, interim and fractional roles we are recruiting for now. Registering as a candidate means we can call you about roles before they are advertised. We work with candidates the way we work with clients: straight answers, real market information and no sending your CV anywhere without your agreement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why only roles at £50,000 and above?

Specialist recruitment works best when the recruiter knows the market inside out. Concentrating on qualified finance at this level means we know the candidates, the salaries and the questions to ask, which shortens searches and improves shortlists.

How quickly will you respond to a brief?

The same working day. For urgent interim cover, call 0204 553 8893 or email recruitment@accountancycapital.co.uk.

What does a search cost?

It depends on the type of hire. We agree the fee in writing before any search starts, so there are no surprises later.

Can you help us decide what level of hire we need?

Yes. Many briefs start with a question about whether the business needs a Finance Manager, a Financial Controller or a part-time finance leader. We will give you a straight recommendation based on the work involved and your budget.