Finance Business Partner (Business Planning and Analysis)

TN United Kingdom; Manchester; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job description

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Finance Business Partner (Business Planning and Analysis), Manchester

Client:

Network Rail

Location:

Manchester, United Kingdom

Job Category:

Logistics

EU work permit required:

Yes

Job Reference:

69276bdd423a

Job Views:

4

Posted:

18.04.2025

Expiry Date:

02.06.2025

Job Description:

An exciting 12 month fixed-term Finance Business Partner opportunity has become available in the Northwest Route FP&A team.

We are seeking a detail-oriented FP&A Analyst with foundational knowledge in financial planning and analysis, budgeting, forecasting, and experience with basic data analytics tools such as Power Query and Power BI. The ideal candidate will assist in driving key financial processes, providing financial insights to support business decision-making, ensuring accurate financial reporting, and providing various summary reports for stakeholder business review meetings.

You will be engaging with a multitude of stakeholders around the business, including Route FD, Route Director, Heads of Maintenance and Operations.

You will have a working knowledge of Power BI and an ability to manipulate and interpret data from multiple systems and transform into relevant insights for stakeholders.

About the role (External)

1. Support the annual budgeting and quarterly re-forecasting (RFs) processes by gathering, analysing, and consolidating financial data.
2. Develop and maintain financial models to project future performance and help assess potential risks and opportunities.
3. Analyse, manipulate and interpret historical financial data to identify trends and variances, offering insights for improvement.

Reporting & Data Analysis:

1. Assist in preparing monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports, presenting variance analysis, and key financial metrics.
2. Use Power Query and Excel to extract, transform, and load data from various financial systems for analysis.
3. Leverage Power BI dashboards and reports that visualize key financial performance indicators (KPIs).
4. Analyse financial performance to identify trends or anomalies.
5. Present actionable insights and recommendations to management to improve efficiency, controlling costs, and optimising resource allocation.
6. Work closely with cross-functional teams (e.g. Delivery Units, Regional finance teams and X-Route Finance stakeholders) to collect relevant financial data and ensure accuracy in reporting.
7. Assist in identifying opportunities to improve financial processes and reporting mechanisms.

Ad-Hoc Analysis:

Provide ad-hoc financial analysis and reporting support as needed for special projects, business initiatives, or strategy meetings.

About the role:

Every day will be different, but you can expect to be involved in the following activities:

1. Lead and provide financial advice and guidance to senior budget holders to understanding the impact of the period results and forecasts against budgets so they can understand their business better.
2. Be the expert in the function on accounting practices and advise on financial results and forecasts for budget holders, including preparing accruals, transfers, and adjustments to validate accounts are accurate.
3. Deliver expert and accurate business review information and reporting to highlight any significant issues with both financial and other business results to enable informed decision making.
4. Engage and influence senior members of the team to help them understand their financial position and use professional expertise to guide in initiatives to improve business performance.
5. Build detailed plans to manage and develop the production of business plans and budgets to enable good corporate governance and value add analysis for senior leaders.
6. Model and analyse the cost base to identify and drive opportunities for efficiencies to achieve cost targets.

In order to be successful in this role, we would like you to have/to be:

• Demonstrate strong understanding of business needs and relevant application of accounting standards.
• Expert knowledge and experience of creating and maintaining accounts and annual budget.
• Significant experience within relevant finance disciplines.
• Strong excel skills and use of data manipulation.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to interpret technical accounting regulations into everyday language.
• Demonstrable effective influencing skills at a senior level.
• Significant understanding of financial control and risk.
• Excellent technical finance and accounting knowledge.

We would also like, but it isn’t crucial to have/to be:

• Understanding of project management principles and experience of managing complex projects.
• Experience of Oracle based systems.
• Membership (or working towards a membership) of a relevant accounting body (CIMA/ACCA).
• Degree or equivalent qualification in finance and accounting or business management or experience.