Maternity Cover Across the Finance Function: MA to FC

Maternity cover is one of the few hiring decisions with a known start date, a known duration and a known end — and businesses still get it wrong with some regularity. The mistake is almost never the candidate; it is choosing the wrong arrangement for the level. A fixed-term contract that works perfectly for a Management Accountant will often produce a thin shortlist at Financial Controller level, because many of the people who cover FC roles are career interims who will not take employment. This guide sets out how the decision changes as you move up the function, what each arrangement costs, the statutory points that shape the timeline, and how to run the cover so the returner comes back to something recognisable.

The principle: the arrangement follows the level

The single most useful thing to understand is that the candidate market changes shape as you move up the function, and the right arrangement follows it.

At Management Accountant and Finance Manager level, a genuine pool of capable people will accept a nine-to-twelve month fixed-term contract — people between roles, people who want a defined commitment, people returning from a career break. Employment status brings benefits and stability they value, and you pay less than a day rate.

At Financial Controller level and above, that pool thins sharply. The people who are good at stepping into a business for nine months and running it have built careers doing exactly that, they often work through their own companies, and they will generally decline an FTC. Offering one at that level narrows your shortlist to people between permanent roles — which is a different and usually weaker group for this purpose.

That single distinction resolves most maternity cover decisions. Everything below is detail.

Level by level

Management Accountant. FTC is almost always right. The work is defined, the cycle is monthly, and the pool for a twelve-month contract is deep. Budget roughly the salary equivalent plus employment costs. Verify qualification with CIMA, ACCA or ICAEW as standard. Recruit early — the handover matters more here than people expect, because month-end knowledge is procedural and lives in habits rather than documents. See Management Accountant recruitment and, where an interim suits better, interim Management Accountant recruitment.

Finance Manager. FTC usually right, interim where the role also needs something fixed. This is the level where the choice genuinely goes both ways: if the cover is pure continuity, take the contract; if the function is mid-systems-change or the close is unreliable, an interim brings pattern recognition that a contractor learning the business does not. Our guide to interim Finance Manager cover works through the distinction, and Finance Manager day rates and salaries sets out the cost of each.

Financial Accountant. Depends entirely on timing. If the leave spans a year-end, you need someone who has run statutory accounts and an audit unsupervised — that is an interim market. If it falls between cycles, an FTC is fine. See interim Financial Accountant day rates.

FP&A Manager. Timing again: cover spanning the budget season needs someone who can own a planning cycle from a standing start, which points to interim. Outside it, FTC works. See interim FP&A and budget season.

Financial Controller. Interim, in nearly all cases. The role carries the close, the balance sheet, the audit relationship and the team, and it needs someone effective within a fortnight. This is the level where FTC offers most often produce disappointing shortlists — our dedicated page on maternity cover Financial Controller recruitment covers it in more depth.

Head of Finance or Finance Director. Interim, without qualification. At this level the cover also carries the bank, the board and the commercial challenge, and the market is entirely a day-rate one — see interim Finance Director. Director-level interim searches are often run with our sister firm FD Capital.

What each costs

Two points on the arithmetic. The FTC figures include employer’s National Insurance (currently 15% above the secondary threshold), pension and benefits — roughly a fifth to a quarter above salary — which is the honest number to compare against a day rate. And an interim covering nine months at around 190–195 working days costs more in total than an FTC at the same level; you are buying speed, flexibility and a clean ending. Day rates shown are typical London figures; regional rates usually sit lower. Rates across the function are in our interim finance rate card and, for controllers specifically, interim Financial Controller rates.

Fixed-term contract or interim: the practical differences

Beyond cost, the two arrangements differ in how they are engaged, how they end and where the employment risk sits.

A fixed-term employee

A fixed-term maternity cover is an employee for the duration, on your payroll, with holiday, pension auto-enrolment and the same statutory protections as permanent staff. The contract should state clearly, in writing, that the role covers a specific period of leave and will end when the postholder returns. Build in flexibility: the returner may come back earlier or later than planned, may take Shared Parental Leave, or may ask for a flexible working pattern, so tie the end date to the return and include a notice clause rather than fixing a calendar date alone. Fixed-term employees must not be treated less favourably than comparable permanent staff without objective justification, and successive fixed-term contracts running four years or more can become permanent — the gov.uk guidance on fixed-term contracts summarises the rules.

An interim

An interim is usually engaged through their own limited company or an umbrella company, on a day rate, with notice periods measured in days or weeks. That makes the arrangement simple to extend or end, but it brings IR35 into play. For medium and large private-sector clients, the business engaging the contractor is responsible for deciding whether the off-payroll rules apply and issuing a status determination; for small companies the contractor decides. A maternity cover role that manages a team, sits in the line structure and follows the business’s working pattern for nine months often points towards inside IR35, and many interims in these roles work through an umbrella company as a result. HMRC’s guidance on understanding off-payroll working (IR35) is the starting point, and our guide to umbrella, PSC and fixed-term engagement compares the models. Treat this as general information rather than tax advice on a specific engagement.

For a wider comparison of temporary, fixed-term and interim arrangements, see temporary employment vs fixed-term contracts.

The statutory points that shape the plan

The cover is planned around the employee’s leave, so it helps to understand the framework that sets its length and its ending. In summary:

• Maternity leave. Eligible employees can take up to 52 weeks: 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave followed by 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave. Two weeks immediately after birth are compulsory (four for factory workers). The employee chooses when to start leave, normally no earlier than 11 weeks before the expected week of childbirth.
• Statutory Maternity Pay. SMP is paid for up to 39 weeks to eligible employees — 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then a flat weekly rate (or 90% of earnings if lower) for the remaining 33. The flat rate is reviewed each April; current figures are on gov.uk. Many employers top up SMP under their own policy.
• Keeping in Touch days. By agreement, an employee can work up to 10 Keeping in Touch days during maternity leave without ending the leave or losing SMP. They are useful for budget meetings, year-end sign-off or a system go-live — and for a structured handover back before the return.
• The right to return. An employee returning after Ordinary Maternity Leave is entitled to return to the same job. After Additional Maternity Leave, the right is to the same job or, if that is not reasonably practicable, a suitable alternative on terms no less favourable. Returning early requires at least eight weeks’ notice. The gov.uk employer guide to maternity leave and pay sets out the detail.
• Fixed-term employees’ own rights. A maternity cover employee on a fixed-term contract has the same core employment rights as permanent staff for the duration, including maternity rights of their own if they qualify.

Acas publishes practical guidance for employers on managing leave and return. Take specific advice where the situation is not straightforward.

Timing: start earlier than feels necessary

The most common practical failure is starting too late. A useful sequence:

Four to five months before the leave: decide the arrangement and brief the search. At FC level and above, good interims plan their year and the best are booked. Our guide on how to brief an interim finance search covers what to include.

Three months before: appoint. FTC candidates frequently have notice periods of their own, which is the factor businesses most often forget when comparing arrangements. A permanent-style FTC search typically produces a shortlist within one to two weeks; interim shortlists come within days.

Four to six weeks before: start, with overlap. This is the single highest-return decision in the whole exercise — two to four weeks of handover with the person going on leave transforms the first month, and businesses that skip it lose more than the overlap costs. Remember that the start of leave can move: an employee may begin leave early, or the baby may arrive early, so have the handover documentation in place before the planned overlap rather than relying on it.

And plan the return, including a handover back and a conversation about what has changed. Returners who come back to a function they no longer recognise are more likely to leave soon after.

The handover checklist

A handover that covers the following leaves the cover able to operate without phoning the person on leave:

• The month-end timetable, with owners, deadlines and the journals and reconciliations each person prepares.
• System access, approval limits and bank mandates transferred or added before day one.
• The year-end and audit calendar, including open audit points and the contact at the auditor.
• Key reports: who receives them, when, and the judgements that go into them.
• Regulatory and tax deadlines — VAT, payroll, corporation tax instalments and any sector returns.
• Known problems: unreconciled balances, a slow debtor, a supplier dispute, a control that needs fixing.
• The people: the team’s strengths, any performance issues and the stakeholders outside finance.

Our guide to interim finance handovers goes into more detail, and optimising the month-end close is useful if the cover is also expected to tighten the timetable.

Running the cover well

Define what the cover is for. “Keep things going” produces a caretaker, which may be exactly right — but if the leave is also an opportunity to fix the close or document the process, say so and price accordingly. Being explicit avoids the returner discovering unannounced change.

Give real authority. Cover without decision rights slows everything and frustrates everyone. Sign-off limits, system access and the ability to direct the team should transfer on day one.

Document as you go. Maternity cover is one of the few moments when a business is forced to write down how its finance function actually works. Treating that as a deliverable rather than a by-product leaves the function better than it found it.

And keep the returner informed at whatever level they want. Legally the arrangements around leave and return are set out on gov.uk, with practical guidance from Acas; culturally, the businesses that handle this well are the ones where the returner is not surprised by anything. Keeping in Touch days are the natural mechanism for this. If you have an interim FC in the seat, our guide to managing your interim Financial Controller covers the working relationship.

When cover becomes something else

Two situations worth naming. The returner does not return. It happens, and a business that has run a good cover arrangement frequently has an obvious permanent candidate already in the seat — which is one of the quiet advantages of choosing well at the start. And the cover reveals the role was wrong. Nine months of an experienced interim sometimes shows that the function needed a Financial Controller rather than a Finance Manager, or that two roles should be one. That is useful information, and it is worth acting on rather than defaulting back to the previous structure — our guide to structuring a finance team covers the question. Any change to the returner’s role must respect their right to return, so take advice before restructuring a role held by someone on leave.

Frequently asked questions

How long is finance maternity cover usually?

Most cover runs nine to twelve months, reflecting the 52-week maximum leave and the common pattern of returning after SMP ends at 39 weeks. Allow for an overlap at the start and a short handover back at the end.

Is a fixed-term contract or an interim cheaper?

Over a full nine to twelve months, a fixed-term contract is usually cheaper. A Management Accountant FTC costs roughly £58k–£78k fully loaded, against £250–£375 a day for an interim. The interim premium buys speed, experience and flexibility.

What day rate should we expect for an interim Financial Controller?

In London, interim Financial Controllers typically charge £400–£650 a day, depending on complexity, sector and whether the role spans a year-end. Finance Managers typically sit at £300–£450.

Can the cover employee be dismissed when the returner comes back?

A fixed-term contract that clearly states it is for maternity cover will normally end on the return, but the employee keeps their statutory rights during the contract. Make the purpose explicit in writing at the outset and take advice if the cover has run for a long period.

What if the employee extends their leave or returns early?

Both happen. An early return needs at least eight weeks’ notice, and leave can be extended up to the 52-week limit. Tie the cover’s end date to the return and include notice provisions so the arrangement can flex either way.