Head Of Finance Recruitment Service

Head of Finance Recruitment

FD Capital recruits Heads of Finance for UK businesses — permanent, interim and fractional appointments across all sectors and business sizes. The Head of Finance is the most commonly appointed senior finance role in UK SMEs and mid-market businesses: the professional who runs the finance function day-to-day, owns the management accounts and reporting, leads the budget and forecast process, manages the finance team and provides the commercial finance support the MD and CEO rely on. Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of FD Capital and a Fellow of the ICAEW, leads FD Capital’s finance recruitment practice. We have placed Heads of Finance, Finance Managers, Financial Controllers and Finance Directors into growing UK businesses since 2018.

Call 020 3287 9501 or email recruitment@fdcapital.co.uk. Shortlists typically delivered within three to seven working days.

What Is a Head of Finance?

The Head of Finance title is used most commonly in businesses in the £5m to £75m revenue range to describe the most senior finance professional in the business — typically a qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with several years of post-qualification experience who manages the finance function, owns the management accounts and reporting cycle, leads budgeting and forecasting, manages the finance team and handles external relationships with the bank, auditors and HMRC.

In some businesses the title is Finance Manager or Senior Finance Manager; in others it is Head of Finance or Director of Finance. The responsibilities are broadly equivalent across these titles at this level — what matters is the scope and the seniority, not the exact label. Where the business needs the same person to provide more strategic finance input — investor engagement, M&A support, Board-level financial leadership — the right title is Finance Director or CFO. See our Finance Director Recruitment and CFO Executive Search pages for those profiles.

Signs Your Business Needs a Head of Finance

Management accounts are late, incomplete or not produced at all

If the business is regularly more than ten working days into the following month before the management accounts are ready — or if they consist of a basic P&L without balance sheet, variance analysis or commentary — the business needs a more senior finance professional running the process. Late and incomplete management accounts are one of the most common reasons businesses make poor commercial decisions: the CEO is flying partially blind.

The finance function is managed by a bookkeeper or accounts assistant

Bookkeepers and accounts assistants are essential for transaction processing — purchase ledger, sales ledger, payroll, VAT returns. But the jump from transactional processing to management accounts production, budgeting, balance sheet reconciliation and commercial analysis requires a qualified accountant with the skills and experience to own the whole finance function. When the most senior person in finance is a bookkeeper, the business has typically outgrown its finance function.

The CEO or MD is spending significant time on financial management

When the CEO or founder is the de facto Head of Finance — reviewing bank statements, chasing the bookkeeper for numbers, managing the bank relationship personally and building the budget in a spreadsheet — the business needs a dedicated senior finance professional. The MD’s time is better deployed on commercial leadership, client relationships and strategic decisions; a Head of Finance frees that time by taking ownership of the finance function entirely.

The business is growing rapidly or planning to raise capital

Rapid growth increases the complexity of the finance function — more transactions, more reporting requirements, more banking engagement, more payroll, more VAT — at exactly the moment when the CEO is most stretched. A Head of Finance appointed ahead of a significant growth phase or capital raise ensures the finance infrastructure scales with the business rather than becoming a constraint on it.

What FD Capital Looks for in a Head of Finance

FD Capital screens Head of Finance candidates against a specific set of competencies that reflect what growing businesses actually need from this appointment — not a generic senior finance profile. The markers we assess include: full management accounts ownership — the candidate has personally produced a monthly management pack end-to-end, including month-end close, accruals, balance sheet reconciliations and commentary; commercial financial analysis — the candidate can do more than report numbers, they can explain what is driving them and recommend what to do about it; team management capability — the candidate has managed or supervised at least a small finance team, and can hire and develop junior finance staff as the business grows; banking and external relationship experience — the candidate has managed a banking relationship, prepared year-end files for auditors and dealt with HMRC; and ERP system ownership — the candidate understands accounting systems, not just how to use them, and can drive system improvements when needed.

Head of Finance Recruitment by Business Type

Owner-managed businesses — first senior finance appointment

For owner-managed businesses in the £3m to £20m revenue range making their first senior finance hire, the Head of Finance appointment is the most impactful investment they can make in the business infrastructure. FD Capital places candidates into this type of business who combine technical accounting competence with the practical hands-on capability to deal with imperfect systems and processes — and the commercial awareness to make themselves genuinely useful to an MD who is used to making financial decisions without a finance professional’s input.

Scaling businesses — strengthening ahead of growth

Businesses in a growth phase that have a bookkeeper or accounts assistant in place and need to step up to a proper senior finance function benefit from a Head of Finance who can come in, quickly assess the current state of the finance function, build the processes and controls needed, and provide the management reporting the business needs to manage its growth intelligently.

PE-backed portfolio companies

PE sponsors frequently require portfolio companies to have a professional Head of Finance in place from the point of investment — providing the management accounts quality and reporting cadence that the sponsor’s portfolio monitoring requires. FD Capital’s PE executive search practice places Heads of Finance and Financial Controllers into PE-backed businesses alongside CFO and Finance Director appointments.

Businesses in transition

When a Finance Manager or Financial Controller leaves — particularly unexpectedly — an interim Head of Finance provides experienced leadership continuity while the permanent search is conducted. FD Capital recruits interim Heads of Finance at short notice from its active network, typically introducing candidates within five to ten working days of a brief. See our Interim Financial Controller and Interim Finance Director pages for related interim finance appointments.

Head of Finance Salary Guide UK 2026

London salary premiums of 15–25% typically apply. For next-level benchmarks see our Finance Director Salary Guide and CFO Salary Guide. For the fractional model specifically see our Fractional Head of Finance page.

Related Finance Recruitment Services

Businesses recruiting a Head of Finance may also be interested in: Fractional Head of Finance | Financial Controller Recruitment | Finance Director Recruitment | Outsourced CFO | Fractional CFO | Interim Financial Controller | Management Accountant Recruitment | Head of Finance Job Description | FC Salary Guide | FC Career Path