Finance Manager and Financial Accountant Opportunities (4614)

Job summary

Would you like to help manage around £50 billion of public spending to improve the lives of the people of Scotland?

The Scottish Government is recruiting finance professionals to join its Financial Management and Reporting team within Financial Management Directorate. Working at the heart of government, our teams enable Ministers and senior leaders to make informed decisions by supporting financial management, reporting, and governance across the organisation.

This is a unique opportunity to build your career in a collaborative and forward-looking finance function that supports around £50 billion of spending, and that is committed to developing the skills and expertise of its people.

Both Finance Manager and Financial Accountant opportunities are available, and so whether you are leading a finance team to provide strategic insights and advice, or delivering statutory reporting and controls, you will work with a wide range of stakeholders to manage financial challenges and opportunities, deliver high quality stewardship of public resources, and support delivery of government priorities.

Click here for more information about these opportunities

Job description

Finance Manager:

• Lead your Finance Team’s budget monitoring activities, reinforcing required standards, identifying improvements and supporting development and training needs.
• Support continuous improvement of financial reporting, providing high quality and persuasive insights that enable stakeholders make informed decisions, and delivering appropriate challenge where required.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships across the Financial Management Directorate, Scottish Government business areas, and partner bodies to provide professional advice on a range of finance topics and facilitate effective collaboration on corporate financial exercises.
• Lead and quality assure your Finance Team’s contributions to the annual accounts and Provisional and Final Outturn in accordance with the corporate timetable.
• Build an effective and high performing team by providing support, coaching and guidance, delegating effectively, and by leading by example. 
• Support changes arising from the implementation and development of Oracle Cloud finance systems, embedding new ways of working and processes effectively. 

Financial Accountant:

• Support the preparation and delivery of the Scottish Government annual accounts, ensuring compliance with corporate timetables and requirements.
• Coordinate external audit activities, preparing required schedules and maintaining effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders to ensure timely provision of information.
• Lead and support finance colleagues to deliver team priorities, including driving improvements to management information and reporting, and balance sheet controls.
• Provide accounting and financial management advice to build financial capability and support annual accounts and audit process improvements within your team and the Scottish Government.
• Ensure the integrity and accuracy of transactions and reporting on financial systems, including the Non-Current Asset Register, maintaining effective checks and controls.
• Support changes arising from the implementation and development of Oracle Cloud finance systems, embedding new ways of working and processes effectively.

Person specification

Success Profile:

Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.

Professional / Technical Skills:

• Government Finance - Practitioner Level
• Working with data in finance – Practitioner Level
• Business and Organisation - Working Level

You can find out more about the skills required here: Finance Profession Capability Framework

Experience:

• Significant financial management experience, with a track record in delivering processes such as budgeting, forecasting and costing, or financial accounts

Behaviours:

• Communicating and influencing  - Level 3
• Making effective decisions - Level 3

You can find out more about Success Profiles Behaviours here Behaviour levels - Success profiles: candidate guide - gov.scot

Qualifications

The successful candidate must be a fully qualified CCAB or CIMA (or equivalent) accountant with up-to-date CPD.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

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

• Government Finance - Practitioner Level
• Working with data in finance – Practitioner Level
• Business and Organisation - Working Level

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £49,401, Scottish Government contributes

£14,311 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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.

If invited for further assessment, this will consist of an interview and presentation .

Assessments are scheduled for w/c 5 October 2026 however this may be subject to change.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) 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.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the

Civil 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.

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 : Gillian Brown
• Email : Gillian.Campbell4@gov.scot

Recruitment team

• Email : scottishgovernmentrecruitment@gov.scot

Apply at advertiser's site

Share this page

• Print
• Email
• Gmail
• Facebook
• LinkedIn