FP&A Manager Job Description Template and Salaries

This page gives you an FP&A Manager job description you can copy and adapt, together with current UK salary benchmarks, the KPIs that tell you whether the hire is working, advice on writing an advert that attracts the right people, and pointers for the interview. It is written for finance directors, CFOs and founders who need to hire into planning and analysis and want the specification to be accurate first time.

FP&A is the seat most often mis-specified in UK finance hiring. The title covers everything from a reporting analyst who rolls the forecast forward each month to a genuine planning lead who owns the budget cycle and challenges the leadership team, and candidates read the specification closely to work out which one you actually mean. If you are still deciding whether your gap is planning capability or financial control, our comparison of FP&A Manager versus Financial Controller covers the overlap. For a plain-English description of the job itself, see what an FP&A Manager does. The role is placed through our FP&A recruitment practice.

Before you write: four decisions

Most weak FP&A specifications are not badly written. They are written before four basic questions have been answered, so the document tries to describe two or three different jobs at once. Settle these first and the template below almost fills itself in.

1. Planning or reporting?

This is the single most important distinction. A role built around producing the monthly pack and rolling the forecast forward is a reporting role. A role built around owning the planning cycle, modelling decisions and challenging the business is a planning role. Both are legitimate and both are worth hiring for, but conflating them produces an unhappy appointment. If the honest answer is “mostly reporting, with some planning”, write that down and expect candidates from a management accounting background. Our guide to FP&A versus management accounts in board reporting sets out where the line usually falls.

2. Does it own the budget cycle?

If yes, say so explicitly. Ownership of the budget timetable, templates, challenge sessions and consolidation is the clearest signal of seniority in this discipline and the thing strong candidates look for first. If the FD owns the budget and the FP&A Manager supports it, say that too; it is a perfectly good role for someone stepping up from senior analyst, but it is not the same as an owner.

3. Is there a team, now or later?

An FP&A Manager with two analysts is doing a different job from a standalone one. The standalone version is far more hands-on than candidates from larger organisations expect: they will build the model, pull the data and write the commentary themselves. If you plan to add an analyst within a year, mention it, because it widens the field to people who want to build a team. Our FP&A Analyst job description covers the junior seat if you are hiring both.

4. Where does it sit against financial control?

Reporting to the FD alongside a Financial Controller is a clean structure. Reporting into the FC, or sharing the month-end, means the planning work will lose to the close every month unless the time is protected. That is the most common reason these appointments disappoint, and it is worth deciding now rather than discovering it six months in.

The FP&A Manager job description template

Copy the text below into your own document and adapt it. Square brackets mark what to change. Delete any responsibility that does not genuinely apply; a shorter, accurate list is far more useful to candidates than a long, aspirational one.

The professional bodies’ own sites are useful if you want to check what a qualification covers: CIMA (via AICPA & CIMA) is the qualification most closely aligned to planning and management accounting, while ACCA and the ICAEW’s ACA are both common in FP&A seats. Our guide to ACA vs ACCA vs CIMA for in-house finance explains how the routes differ in practice.

KPIs for an FP&A Manager

The “success in the first twelve months” section above describes outcomes. If you run objectives or a balanced scorecard, these are the measures that translate them into something you can review each quarter. Pick four or five; a scorecard of fifteen measures tells you nothing.

Forecast accuracy is the measure most businesses reach for first, and it is useful, but it should not be the only one. A forecast can be accurate because the business is predictable, not because the analysis is good. Pair it with decision impact and scenario response time and you measure the part of the job that justifies the salary. Our guides to building a rolling forecast and budgeting and reforecasting cover how good processes are built.

FP&A Manager salary benchmarks

The ranges below are base salary for permanent roles and reflect Accountancy Capital’s current view of the UK market. They exclude bonus, pension and benefits. Fuller detail, including sector premiums, is in our FP&A Manager salary guide.

Annual bonuses of 10–20% of base are common, rising in investor-backed businesses. Two premiums are consistent. Genuine transaction or fundraising exposure lifts candidates towards the top of each band, and regulated-firm experience typically adds 15–25%, because FCA-regulated businesses need planners who understand capital and liquidity as well as profit. The regulated firm finance salary guide covers that market.

The full cost of the hire

Base salary is not the cost. Employer National Insurance has been 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year since April 2025 (see HMRC’s National Insurance rates and categories), so an FP&A Manager on £72,000 carries roughly £10,050 of employer NI before pension, bonus and benefits. Budget for an all-in cost of roughly 25–35% above base, depending on your bonus and pension terms.

Interim and fractional FP&A

Interim FP&A Managers typically charge £400–£600 a day in London. Interim suits a defined piece of work: a budget season, a model rebuild ahead of a fundraise, or cover while a permanent search runs. A three-month budget-season assignment at manager level is around 65 working days. For longer, lighter-touch needs, a fractional arrangement of one or two days a week can work where the business needs planning discipline but not a full-time planner; our page on fractional finance business partnering explains how that model works.

Common specification mistakes

Advertising planning, describing reporting. The commonest error in this discipline. A specification full of monthly pack production with “and business partnering” appended attracts planning candidates who leave when they discover the reality. Write the split as it is.

Leaving month-end attached. Where the FP&A Manager also carries close responsibilities, the close wins every month because it has a deadline and planning does not. Over a year the role drifts back into management accounting. If the close must be shared, say so and resource it accordingly.

Requiring a specific planning tool as essential. Tool familiarity is learnable in weeks; modelling judgement is not. Specifying Anaplan or Pigment as essential narrows the pool for a signal you do not need. Our overview of FP&A tooling explains which skills transfer between platforms.

No mention of who they partner. “Business partnering” without naming the areas is meaningless. Name them, and say whether the FP&A Manager attends those teams’ meetings.

Understating the hands-on element. In most mid-market businesses the FP&A Manager builds the model personally. Candidates from large corporates may expect an analyst to do that, and it is better they know before the first interview.

Turning the job description into an advert

A job description and a job advert do different jobs. The description is the internal reference document that sets out scope, reporting lines and expectations. The advert has one purpose: to persuade the right people to apply and the wrong people not to. Pasting the full description onto a job board rarely works, because the first lines a candidate reads are the reporting line and a list of duties, which tell them nothing about why the role is interesting.

Lead with the problem the role solves

Strong FP&A candidates are attracted by the planning challenge. Open with it: “We have grown from £15m to £40m revenue in three years and our forecasting has not kept up” is more compelling than “We are looking for an experienced FP&A Manager to join our growing team”. State the business, its scale and what the first year should deliver.

Publish the salary

Adverts with a stated range attract more relevant applications, and FP&A candidates in particular use the figure to judge whether the role is planning or reporting. A London advert at £55,000 will be read as a senior analyst role whatever the title says. Use the benchmarks above and be realistic.

Be specific about the split and the tools

Say roughly how time divides between budgeting, forecasting, ad hoc analysis and reporting. Name the systems: ERP, planning tool, BI. If the model lives in Excel and needs rebuilding, say so; many good candidates find that appealing.

Keep the language inclusive

Avoid wording that suggests an age or background preference, such as “young, dynamic team” or “digital native”. Rigid requirements for a set number of years’ experience can also risk indirect age discrimination; describing the experience you need (“has owned a full budget cycle”) is both fairer and more useful. Acas guidance on recruitment and the Equality Act 2010 guidance set out the principles.

Keep it short

Four hundred to six hundred words is enough for an advert. Attach or link the full description for those who want the detail. Our wider library of finance job description templates follows the same format if you are hiring several roles.

Interview pointers: assessing candidates

The best FP&A interviews test the four areas the specification sets out, each with a direct question or exercise. Interviews that rely on general competency questions tend to reward candidates who present well rather than those who plan well.

Modelling. Ask them to describe a model they built, how it was structured, and what happened when a key assumption changed. Better still, give them a real (anonymised) problem and twenty minutes. Our guide to scenario and sensitivity analysis sets out what good looks like.

Ownership of a cycle. Ask them to walk through their last budget process week by week, including what went wrong. Contributors describe the output; owners describe the timetable, the arguments and how they resolved them.

Commercial instinct. Ask what drives profitability in a business like yours, and expect a hypothesis rather than generalities. A candidate who asks about your pricing, mix and cost base before answering is showing you how they will work.

Influence. Ask for a decision their analysis changed, in full: what they found, who they had to convince, and what happened. Vague answers here are the most reliable warning sign in FP&A hiring.

A short case study, sent a day or two ahead and presented at interview, works well for manager-level roles. Keep it to two or three hours of work at most; long unpaid exercises put off the strongest candidates, who usually have other options. Our FP&A interview questions guide sets out the full question sequence and what strong answers sound like, and our guide to competency-based finance interview questions covers the behavioural side.

Where the FP&A Manager fits in the finance team

In a business of £10m to £50m revenue, the FP&A Manager often sits alongside the Financial Controller, both reporting to the FD or CFO. The FC owns the record (close, controls, audit, statutory accounts); the FP&A Manager owns the plan (budget, forecast, analysis). Where a business also has finance business partners embedded with commercial teams, they often feed numbers into the FP&A cycle, and the roles overlap; our comparison of FBP vs FP&A vs FC sets out the differences, and the finance business partner job description covers that seat.

As planning work grows to three or more staff, or the planning calendar needs an owner in its own right, the case for a Head of FP&A appears; see our guide to the Head of FP&A role and when to create it. If the real need is a finance leader rather than a planner, sister firm FD Capital handles FD and CFO appointments.

Frequently asked questions

Does an FP&A Manager need to be qualified?

Usually, though this is the one finance discipline where strong non-qualified analysts genuinely compete. Modelling and commercial capability can outweigh the letters, particularly in technology businesses. If you make a qualification essential, consider adding “or equivalent experience”.

Should FP&A report to the Financial Controller or the FD?

To the FD, CFO or Head of Finance where possible. Reporting into financial control tends to subordinate planning to the close, because the close has a deadline every month and planning does not.

How does an FP&A Manager differ from a finance business partner?

FP&A owns the planning cycle centrally; a business partner is embedded with a commercial area and supports its decisions day to day. The roles overlap but are not identical, and salaries at manager level are broadly similar.

What should an FP&A Manager be paid?

Typically £62,000–£82,000 in London, £54,000–£71,000 in the South East and £48,000–£63,000 in the Midlands and North, before bonus and benefits. Interim FP&A Managers usually charge £400–£600 a day in London.

When does a business need a Head of FP&A rather than a manager?

Usually at three or more planning staff, or where the planning calendar, investor reporting and board relationship need a senior owner. Below that, a strong FP&A Manager reporting to the FD is normally the right answer.

How long does an FP&A Manager search take?

We respond to every brief the same working day. Permanent shortlists typically arrive within one to two weeks, and interim candidates within days. From shortlist to accepted offer usually takes four to six weeks, plus the candidate’s notice period, which is commonly one to three months at this level.