Accountant, Financial Reporting, Financial Analyst

About Us

At Salford City Council, we are committed to delivering high-quality services that improve outcomes for our residents. Our Finance function plays a vital role in supporting informed decision-making, protecting public funds, and ensuring value for money across the organisation.

Our management accountancy teams work closely with services to understand how resources are used, identify financial risks early, and support sustainable delivery. Collaboration, constructive challenge, and forward-looking financial insight sit at the heart of what we do.

This is an exciting time to join Salford. We are implementing a new finance and procurement system, modernising the way we work and strengthening financial management across the Council.

We currently have an Accountant vacancy within our Corporate Services/Capital Directorate. This post is firmly focused on management accounting and financial business partnering.

It is not a transactional finance, treasury, or financial accounts role.

The purpose of the role is to support budget holders to manage their resources effectively by providing robust budget monitoring, forecasting, and meaningful variance analysis, alongside constructive challenge and advice. You will work closely with managers to understand financial performance, explain variances, identify risks, and support decisions about spend and resources.

The core day to day activities will involve

• Owning budget monitoring, forecasting and reforecasting for assigned service areas
• Producing clear and insightful variance analysis, explaining drivers rather than just reporting movements
• Working directly with budget holders to understand spend patterns, pressures, and resource plans
• Challenging assumptions, profiling, and value for money in a constructive and professional way
• Providing forward-looking financial analysis to support operational and strategic decisions
• Identifying emerging financial risks early and supporting managers to take corrective action
• Supporting continuous improvement, including the implementation of the new finance and procurement system

This role involves regular engagement with non-finance colleagues and requires confidence in explaining financial information clearly and pragmatically.

This role is not for you if you are primarily looking for:

• Accounts payable or accounts receivable roles
• Treasury or cash-management-focused positions
• Financial accounting, audit, or statutory reporting-led roles
• Roles with limited stakeholder engagement or financial challenge

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:

• Strong management accounting experience, including budget setting, monitoring, forecasting, and variance analysis
• Experience working directly with budget holders or non-finance managers
• Confidence to challenge financial assumptions and spending decisions in a supportive and evidence-based way
• An ability to translate complex financial information into clear, actionable insight
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• A proactive and collaborative approach to improving financial management and ways of working
• (Desirable) Experience with in a public sector finance environment, ideally local government, with an understanding of grant funding, regulatory frameworks and public sector financial processes.

Within your first months, you will be a trusted finance partner to services, providing meaningful variance analysis, producing reliable forecasts, and helping managers understand and actively manage their financial position.