Head of Core Finance

Job summary

We are looking for a Head of Core Finance to join the Finance & Commercial Directorate at Companies House.

The Finance Team plays a critical role in ensuring Companies House is well-governed, financially resilient and trusted.

We provide high-quality financial stewardship, robust assurance, and accurate financial reporting while supporting organisational transformation and delivery. This is a senior leadership role, reporting into the Director of Finance & Commercial and a cornerstone of the organisation’s financial governance.

You will lead the Core Finance function, ensuring strong internal control, compliance with government finance standards, and confidence in our financial systems, reporting and processes.

A part of the wider finance team, you will be responsible for the organisation’s financial operations, including payroll, debt management and annual accounts, with the opportunity to play a key role in enhancing the financial maturity of Companies House to drive efficiency and effective decision-making.

Why choose Companies House?

At Companies house we take a proactive approach to wellbeing by promoting a welcoming culture, healthy work life balance and supporting colleagues to be their best in work because we know people are the key to our success.

Our benefits include:

• Flexible working with no core hours (between 6am and 8pm)
• 30 days annual leave
• 8 bank holidays & 1 privilege day
• Enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme, with an average employer contribution of 28%

Find out more about what a great place Companies House is to work

Please note:

• You will be aligned to our Cardiff or Edinburgh office where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis.
• Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.
• We can accept applications from those looking to work part-time, at least 30 hours per week

Job description

The Head of Core Finance will lead the organisation’s financial operations, ensuring Companies House maintains robust financial control, effective systems, and high-quality statutory and management reporting.

Covering four key functions, you will lead teams to deliver; core financial operations, debt management, financial policy and financial systems, bringing them together to deliver seamless services to our customers.

Working closely with senior leaders, external auditors, regulators and the sponsoring department, you will provide assurance that Companies House’s finances are well-managed, and risks are appropriately identified and controlled.

Developing effective working relationships with a number of stakeholders, including members of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC), the National Audit Office (NAO), Government Internal Audit Agency GIAA, His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and other directorates where a collaborative approach is needed to ensure sucess.

You will be a part of the wider Finance Directorate Senior Leadership Team, ensuring the support and development of teams across the directorate. Including a commitment to continuous improvement, automation and efficiency. The holder will model exemplar behaviours and live the Companies House values.

You will also be part of Companies House Leadership Group, offering the opportunity to contribute to the wider running of the organisation, demonstrating strong corporate leadership and effective collaborative working with colleagues and peers.

The role will also deputise for the Director of Finance & Commercial when required.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the Core Finance function (~100 FTE), including financial accounting, statutory reporting, payroll, penalties accounting, debt management and finance systems.
• Develop and implement a strategic vision for the Core Finance function, aligning it with the broader goals of Companies House and the Finance Functions strategy.
• Produce and assure high-quality external financial reporting, including annual accounts and returns to central government.
• Act as senior technical lead on accounting policy and interpretation, ensuring standards are applied consistently.
• Lead and sponsor the development of effective financial systems, driving automation, data quality and efficiency.
• Improve and transform financial systems, data and technology to meet stakeholder needs.
• Act as SRO for Gold contracts within your responsiblity and remit.
• Build and maintain key relationships, in particular developing trust and rapport. This includes managing expectations of senior stakeholders both within Companies House and external advisers.
• Promote effective individual and team performance. Developing individuals and building a high performing team with a commitment to excellence.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Significant experience leading financial control or financial accounting functions in complex organisations.
• Proven experience leading and developing high-performing finance teams.
• Strong technical accounting knowledge with experience in the public sector or other governance-rich environments.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to put complex financial issues into plain language for non-specialist audiences.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including engagement at Director level and with external bodies, eg, auditors.
• Confidence to influence and provide constructive challenge at senior levels.
• Ability to understand financial implications of business strategy / processes and to drive and implement positive change initiatives.
• Proven experience of sound decision-making skills to balance resource, growth and control / risk trade-offs to achieve cost effective quality service.
• Experience in implementing / upgrading financial systems and managing service delivery contracts

Qualifications

Qualified accountant (CCAB, ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with substantial post-qualification experience.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Qualified accountant (CCAB, ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with substantial post-qualification experience.
• Up to date knowledge of and experience of applying International Financial Reporting Standards.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £74,089, Companies House contributes £21,463 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We believe that our success is driven by the well-being and satisfaction of our team members at all levels of the organisation. At Companies House we’re committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that goes beyond the ordinary, ensuring your career journey with us is not only fulfilling, but also rewarding. We pride ourselves on offering a quality work-life balance with our employee wellbeing being central to our working practices.

Head to Our benefits - Working for us - Recruitment (companieshouse.gov.uk) to find out more about the fantastic benefits package we have at Companies House.

We celebrate diversity...

As an equal opportunity employer, we celebrate diversity, being committed to ensuring we’re representative of the citizens we serve and creating an inclusive environment. Everyone in Companies House brings something different, and so will you. To fulfil our commitment to recruiting and attracting diverse talent we welcome applications from underrepresented groups. We also welcome applications from Welsh speakers.

We are proud to be a disability confident leader. Our recruitment process is fully inclusive and we can make adjustments as needed through our process. These could include having an interview buddy, extra time at interviews/assessments and receiving interview questions in advance, to name a few.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at application stage, or if you'd like to discuss any person-centred adjustments, please contact us by emailing recruitmentCH@companieshouse.gov.uk.

Read our 'Applying under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS)' guide to find out how to successfully complete an application under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS).

Where will you be working?

You will be aligned to our Cardiff or Edinburgh office, where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis. We are currently using a hybrid approach to the way we work which provides opportunities for you to be adaptable in the way you work so that you can achieve a healthy balance between your work and home life. The degree of choice you have will depend on your role and your day-to-day work activities. Your manager will agree regular patterns of attendance with you, however you may be required to make yourself available to attend the office more frequently when required to meet business needs.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

In your application form we’d like you to:

1. Tell us about your employment history, including any key responsibilities and achievements.
2. Write a personal statement of 1000 words where you demonstrate how you meet the skills required for this role, providing examples to evidence your level of skill. In your personal statement we are looking for evidence of:

• Significant experience leading financial control or financial accounting functions in complex organisations, with strong technical accounting knowledge and experience in the public sector or other governance-rich environment
• Proven experience leading and developing high-performing finance teams.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to put complex financial issues into plain language for non-specialist audiences.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including engagement at Director level and with external bodies, eg, auditors.
• Leading and sponsoring the development of effective financial systems, driving automation, data quality and efficiency.

Companies House uses a blended interview technique, allowing us to find out more about you. We use the Success Profile framework and at interview we will use Success Profiles assessing the Behaviours, technical skills and experience.

We’re committed to being diverse and inclusive, so please make your application anonymous by removing all identifying personal information (such as your name and age) from your personal statement.

Your personal statement should aim to make use of the full wordcount and show how you meet the above criteria. Please give clear and specific examples of what you have done personally and the impact it has had.

What will the process look like?

• We’ll carry out a sift of applications. We may raise the score required at sift stage to progress to interview if we receive a high number of applications.
• At sift we may choose to take through the highest performing candidates to the next stage. If, after the final stage is completed and roles are unfilled, we will proceed to invite lower scoring candidates to interview.
• Successful candidates at sift will be invited to a virtual interview
• There will be an activity as part of the interview - this will be a presentation that candidates will need to prepare in advance, more information will be sent to candidates who are invited to interview.
• We plan to sift applications the week commencing 25th May and interviews will be held 4th and 5th June. Please bear in mind these dates might need to change - we will keep you informed as you move through the recruitment process.
• A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.
• If after interview you are not found appointable at the advertised grade you may be offered the lower grade role if you are considered to meet the skills, experience and behaviours for the lower level. The benchmark for appointing to the lower grade is set at the start of each campaign. All offers will be made in merit order.

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of recruitment based on fair and open competition with decisions made on the basis of merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.

Sponsorship

Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. Companies House holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify. Should you apply for this role and require sponsorship, your application may be rejected, and any provisional offers of employment withdrawn.

Pre-Employment Checking

In line with Government guidance, successfully appointed candidates will need to provide documents for our Right to Work checks.

From June 2026, applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). Your personal details (name, National Insurance number, and date of birth) will be checked against the Civil Service Resourcing Extract IFD.

This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued.

If your details appear on this database, you will not be offered employment unless you can demonstrate exceptional circumstances. Companies House, acting on behalf of the vacancy holder, will inform you if your application is refused for this reason.

Please note: You are not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Tracey Brown
• Email : tbrown@companieshouse.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitmentch@companieshouse.gov.uk

Further information

We welcome applications in Welsh / Rydym yn croesawi ceisiadau yn y Gymraeg. Selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. In accordance with the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles, our recruitment and selection processes are underpinned by the requirement of appointment on the basis of merit by fair and open competition. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact infopoint@companieshouse.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission .

info@csc.gov.uk

Civil Service Commission, Room G/8, 1 Horse Guards Road SW1A 2HQ