Senior Finance Business Partner

Company Description

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world's energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for ground-breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.

As an employee of UKAEA you will benefit from:

• Outstanding defined benefit pension scheme, details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
• Corporate bonus scheme up to 7% and a Relocation allowance (if eligible).
• Flexible working options including family friendly policies and the right to request flexible working from the start of your employment.
• Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders.
• Generous annual leave allowance starting with 25 days, plus 3 days Christmas closure and 2.5 privilege days, in addition to UK bank holidays.
• Wide range of career development opportunities.
• A vibrant culture committed to equality and being fully inclusive.

Job Description

The salary for this role is £48,376. Onsite working is expected for 3 days each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working.

This role is to be based at the following site: Culham, Oxfordshire.

This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions and possibly a search of open source data.

The Role

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy. As Senior Finance Business Partner, you will play a pivotal role in supporting the delivery of major programme and/or Business Unit (BU) objectives. As a valued member of the Senior Management Teams (SMT) for the UKAEA's major programme areas, you will provide financial support in a range of activities covering strategy, planning & analysis, accounting, reporting, bids and costing support, and ad-hoc project work. Depending on the programme area, you may directly manage direct reports with the associated line management responsibilities. Whether managing a small finance team, providing financial input into the 5 Year planning process, a new business case, or closing the monthly accounts, a strategic outlook, accuracy, timeliness, collaboration and understanding of performance essential in this important & high-profile role.

Key Responsibilities:

• Act as the key Finance Partner for the programme area or business unit; be the key point of contact for all finance related matters of programme or business unit delivery.
• Work closely with the programme or business unit senior management team to ensure that programme or business unit objectives are delivered and to provide challenge around financial performance.
• Review and analyse performance, producing reports and commentary for the monthly management accounts, individual project managers and business unit management to enable monitoring of profitability against budget, reasons for major variances, and risks and opportunities.
• Ensure financial reports and associated supporting information is provided to agreed timelines for major grants.
• Ensure provision of consistent, high quality financial information, reinforced by high quality insight and financial advice, supporting the programme / business unit to deliver the right financial outcomes and to help drive sustainable performance improvement.
• Lead and manage a small finance team, where applicable, including mentoring, training, supervision and performance reviews etc., in line with the UKAEA line management guidelines.
• Provide financial leadership and coaching to wider project team members as required, particularly those that are supporting the management of financial performance through forecasting or monitoring and control activities such as for timesheets and procurement.
• Work with the Head of Financial Accounts to ensure accurate recognition of expenditure & revenue in accordance with UKAEA financial policy & where appropriate.
• Work closely with the designated senior management team & business unit to ensure the successful delivery of the business strategic planning, budgeting and forecast processes.
• Build effective working relationships with senior managers and stakeholders to enable the creation of robust programme or business unit budgets and periodic forecasts at project and at a consolidated business unit level.
• Support the maintenance of a robust control environment, including responsibility for relevant balance sheet accounts appropriate to the business area, such as prepayments, accruals, work in progress, income in advance are fully reconciled with adequate supporting documentation available for audit purposes.
• Act as key point of contact for programme audits & ensure all audit requirements are met.
• Follow-Up on internal audit actions and ensure they are closed out to agreed timescales.
• Support finance wide initiatives, such as testing of new reports & upgrades, and other ad hoc work.
• Support the overall capability within finance by leading on initiatives and procedures which improve processes to support and manage programmes and / or enhance the technical capability of junior team members through training and coaching.

Qualifications

Essential:

• A qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA) or qualified by experience.
• Experience of working closely with senior business managers & teams in a "business partner" capacity.
• Experience of managing multi-million-pound government or commercial projects and associated accounting, costing and forecasting activities, understanding of project controls and management processes.
• Understand the principles of revenue recognition and accounting for grant funding.
• Experience of audits of major contracts or grants.
• Ability to manage a multi-funding environment and associated financial reporting.
• Highly proficient in Excel (pivot tables, lookups, sumif formulas etc).
• Able to work on occasion to challenging timescales while still ensuring accuracy.

Desirable:

• Experience of an ERP accounting system; experience of using Unit 4 (Agresso) would be an advantage.
• Experience of report writing in ERP systems, or working alongside systems developers to specify and develop reports would be very relevant.
• Balance sheet review / reconciliation experience.

Additional Information

A full list of our benefits can be found here Employee Benefits.

We welcome talented people from all backgrounds who want to help us achieve our mission. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, particularly from women in STEM, people from Black British Caribbean and African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi British, and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and neurotypical individuals. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) and Wellbeing and our EDI Networks actively promote Inclusion and takes steps to increase diversity within our organisation. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.

For applicants applying from outside the United Kingdom or those who have spent time outside the UK in the last five years, please visit the following link for information on criminal records checks: Criminal Records Checks. If your country of residence or previous residence is not listed on the website or if the UK Government does not have information on obtaining a criminal records check from that state, we regret to inform you that we cannot process your application.

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