Fund Accountant Job Description + Salary Guide UK 2026

Fund accounting sits alongside corporate finance in an asset management business rather than inside it, and the distinction confuses employers and candidates alike. A Fund Accountant maintains the books of the funds — net asset value, valuations, investor allocations, fee calculations — while the firm’s own management accounts are somebody else’s job. Hiring for one when you need the other is a common and expensive error. This page provides a Fund Accountant job description you can adapt, 2026 UK salary benchmarks, and guidance on specifying and testing the role.

Before you write: four decisions

Fund side or firm side? The first and most important. Fund accounting covers NAV production, valuations, investor allocations and fund financial statements. Firm accounting covers the management company’s own P&L, regulatory capital and statutory accounts. Some roles genuinely span both in smaller managers; most do not, and the specification should say which.

In-house or oversight? Many UK managers outsource fund administration and retain an oversight function — reviewing the administrator’s NAV rather than producing it. That is a real and distinct skill set: challenge, reconciliation and adviser management rather than production. State which model you operate, because candidates from one do not automatically fit the other.

Fund structure and asset class. Open-ended versus closed-ended, UCITS, AIF, LP structures, listed versus private assets, single versus multi-currency. Private markets fund accounting — capital calls, distributions, carried interest, waterfall calculations — is a different discipline from daily-dealt liquid funds, and the pools barely overlap.

Reporting framework and jurisdiction. IFRS, FRS 102 or a local GAAP for offshore vehicles; UK, Luxembourg, Ireland, Channel Islands. Each narrows the pool.

The job description template

Adapt the text below; square brackets mark what to change.

Job title: Fund Accountant
Reports to: [Fund Controller / Financial Controller / Head of Finance]
Direct reports: [none / assistant fund accountant]
Location: [location and hybrid pattern]
Salary: [range] plus [bonus, pension, benefits]

Purpose of the role. To maintain the accounting records of [number] funds: producing or reviewing net asset values, valuations and investor allocations accurately and to the dealing or reporting timetable, and preparing the fund financial statements and investor reporting.

Key responsibilities. [Produce / review] the net asset value for [funds] to the agreed timetable, including pricing, accruals and the associated reconciliations. Maintain the fund accounting records and the investor register position, including [subscriptions and redemptions / capital calls and distributions]. Calculate management, performance and administration fees, and [where relevant] carried interest and equalisation. Prepare the annual and interim fund financial statements under [IFRS / FRS 102 / local GAAP] and support the fund audit. Prepare investor reporting, including capital statements and periodic factsheet data. Reconcile cash, positions and investor balances to custodian, administrator and depositary records. Manage the relationship with the [fund administrator / depositary / auditor], including query resolution and service review. [Add as relevant: expense cap and rebate calculations, waterfall and distribution modelling, FX hedging accounting at share-class level, regulatory data for AIFMD or similar reporting.]

Person specification — essential. [Part-qualified / qualified] accountant — ACA, ACCA or CIMA — or equivalent fund accounting experience. Demonstrable NAV production or NAV oversight experience for [fund type]. Strong reconciliation discipline and comfort working to a fixed dealing or reporting timetable. Able to work with fund accounting systems and large data sets directly. Comfortable challenging an administrator or third party on their output.

Person specification — desirable. Experience of [asset class / structure]. Fund administration background. IMC or equivalent. Multi-currency and share-class experience. Exposure to [AIFMD / UCITS] reporting. Systems experience [Investran, eFront, Geneva, Aexeo, or the administrator’s platform].

Success in the first twelve months. [Adapt:] NAVs are produced or reviewed accurately and on time with no material restatement. Reconciliations are current and evidenced. The fund audit completes efficiently with no significant findings. Investor reporting is accurate and delivered to the timetable. Recurring queries with the administrator are reduced through process rather than chasing.

Fund Accountant salary benchmarks 2026

Fund accounting also sits inside the FCA perimeter for authorised managers, and the FCA’s asset management pages set out the wider supervisory context. Three premiums are consistent. Private markets — private equity, credit, infrastructure and real assets — prices above liquid funds at equivalent level, because waterfall and carried interest work is scarcer. Buy-side over administrator: moving from a fund administrator to an asset manager typically carries an uplift, which is why that move is the most common career step in this discipline. And multi-jurisdiction structures add a further premium. Wider benchmarks are in our regulated-firm finance salary guide and the salary guides.

How fund accounting differs from corporate accounting

The practical implication for hiring: a strong Financial Accountant is not a substitute for a Fund Accountant, and vice versa. Our guide to fund accounting basics covers the technical distinction, and what a financial accountant does the firm-side role.

Common specification mistakes

Not saying whether it is production or oversight. The single most common error, and the one that produces the worst mismatches. Someone who has produced NAVs at an administrator has a different skill set from someone who has challenged an administrator’s NAV from the manager’s side.

Blurring fund and firm. If the role genuinely covers both, say so and price it accordingly — it is a broader job and a smaller pool.

Omitting the structure. “Fund accounting experience” without naming the fund type reaches candidates from entirely different disciplines. Private markets and daily-dealt liquid funds are not the same job.

And requiring a specific system as essential. Investran, eFront and Geneva are learnable; the accounting judgement is not. Specifying one as essential narrows a thin pool for limited benefit.

Testing for it at interview

Five questions that separate ownership from adjacency. Walk me through your NAV process end to end — sources, timing, checks, sign-off; owners describe the awkward parts without prompting. What are the most common causes of a NAV error in your experience? Pricing, corporate actions, missed accruals, FX — the answer shows depth quickly. Talk me through a fee calculation you own, particularly performance fees or carried interest, where the judgement lives. Tell me about a time you challenged an administrator or a valuation — the oversight test. And what did the fund auditors raise, and what changed? Ownership of findings, as everywhere in finance hiring.