Finance Manager - Stores & Refits

Home. There's no place like it.

And there's no feeling like helping people create the joy of feeling truly  Dunelm, that's what we do. We're the UK's number one choice for homewares because we make home life lovelier for our customers. And we've crafted a workplace that feels just as welcoming - where you can bring your ideas, be yourself, and feel right at home.

At Dunelm, our Finance team isn't just about numbers, we're the powerhouse behind smart decisions, smooth operations, and spotting golden opportunities for growth. We balance the books and manage procurement like pros, but we also dive deep into financial data to uncover patterns, trends, and hidden gems that help steer our business forward.

With an approximately 85-strong team, we're just the right size - agile enough that no one gets lost in the crowd (or stuck doing the same thing every day), but big enough to offer real opportunities to grow explore new areas and really challenge yourself. If you think finance is all grey suits and spreadsheets - think again. Here, we're making numbers exciting, decisions smarter, and opportunities bigger.

We're a hybrid business, which means you'll have flexibility alongside time together with your team. In this role, you can expect 3 days a week in the office or on-site, helping you stay connected, collaborate and do your best work for our customers.

Business Finance Team is a team of roughly thirty finance professionals, who partner with the functions across Dunelm, to:

• Produce timely and accurate weekly and monthly reports andinsight to inform trading and operational control and decision making
• Set targets (in conjunction with business) and provide independent view of forecasts and trends
• Hold business to account to deliver to targets and manage risks and opportunities
• Support and challenge tactical and strategic decision making,including financial appraisal (and post investment appraisal)
• Agitate for optimising profitability and return on investment,and for best use of our resources
• Use our unique viewpoint to join things up, 'unblock' issuesand put simple structure around priorities and actions.

• Act as the primary finance business partner to the Property and Format teams, building trusted relationships and bringing clear commercial insight and constructive challenge to decisions.
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve store profitability, investment returns and property cost efficiency, using insight to shape the agenda rather than responding only to requests from the business.
• Support the delivery of profitable growth across the store estate, with a particular focus on opening new stores and refitting existing stores.
• Lead the financial appraisal of new store, refit and other property investment options, clearly assessing costs, benefits, risks, payback and expected returns.
• Provide robust challenge to the assumptions underpinning investment proposals and help stakeholders make well informed choices between options.
• Lead post-implementation performance reviews, comparing actual results with the approved business case, challenging underperformance and agreeing actions to improve returns.
• Improve the methodologies, models and governance used to write business cases, appraise payback and assess investment performance.
• Establish clear and consistent tracking of investment spend, benefits and returns against business-case assumptions throughout the investment lifecycle.
• Undertake quarterly reviews of total store profitability, identifying trends and using clear insight to drive actions that improve performance across outlier stores.
• Own the end-to-end financial view of property costs, understanding the key cost drivers and identifying trends, risks and opportunities.
• Lead the month-end story for property costs and investments, ensuring performance is accurately explained and the key messages and actions are clear.
• Own regular forecast updates for property costs and investment activity, working with stakeholders to ensure forecasts are timely, evidence-based and reflect the latest outlook.
• Lead, coach and develop the Finance Business Partner for Property & Store Controllables, setting clear priorities and building capability across the team.

• Experience of coaching, mentoring or developing others, with the ability to set clear direction and build capability; previous formal line-management experience would be helpful but isn't essential.
• A strong…