A look at finance controller jobs

In our series of finance recruitment articles, we will be looking at various finance job roles. The first in the series is the role of a Finance Controller.

Finance Controllers work directly with Finance Directors to manage the day to day finance matters of a company. This senior role is seen as the stepping stone to becoming a Finance Director and involves tasks such as creating finance strategies, working with cash flow, creating accounts, creating and checking financial targets, working with management, monitoring departments and many others.

Finance Controllers use their knowledge to help make decisions when their company is looking at potential acquisitions and will be part of most major finance and business decisions.

Candidates for Finance Controller jobs will be expected to have a background in accountancy and once in the role will be in charge of managing teams of Ledger Clerks who will deal with the more administrative and accountancy aspects of the department.
The day to day aspects will see you working traditional hours, although you will be expected to put in extra hours where necessary. Like many high responsibility management roles, much of your time will be spent within meetings and travelling between offices to provide your services.

When businesses or finance recruiters are looking for candidates for Finance Controller positions, they will be looking for someone who is good at presenting finance data as they will be spending a lot of time doing this to various people in meetings. Other skills that will be looked for are motivation, ability to multitask, attention to detail, good decision making skills and obviously a good understanding of the financial world.

Previous experience in finance and management accounting will be expected for the role of a Finance Controller. You will also be expected to have a qualification from one of the accountancy bodies in the UK (ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS).

Finance Controllers often move on to become Finance Directors, and some even become Managing Directors or Chief Executive Officers, so there are some great career prospects that come with this role.

As with most jobs in the finance sector, salaries are at the higher end, trainees can earn up to £25,000 and qualified finance controllers can earn up to £45,000 a year. As your experience and time grows in the role, your salary can increase to between £50,000 and £100,000.

For more information on finance controller jobs you should talk to a professional finance recruitment company.

This article was written by Tom Sangers on behalf of Martin Ward Anderson who offer professional International Recruitment services for finance jobs and careers