Finance Manager

The Oval Partnership are currently supporting a European manufacturing Group to recruit an Operations Finance Manager to take end-to-end financial ownership of their UK Factory site in the Peterborough area.

In this critical role, you won't just be crunching numbers—you will act as the key Finance Business Partner to the Plant Manager and site leadership team. You will translate operational metrics into actionable financial strategy, influence cost-saving initiatives, and optimise manufacturing profitability from the factory floor up.

Key Responsibilities of the Finance Manager include:

* Operations Business Partnering:
Partner directly with the Plant Manager and operational heads to provide financial insight, constructive challenge, and strategic recommendations to improve site margins and cost management.

* Product Costing & Standard Costing:
Calculate, maintain, and update standard costs for finished and semi-finished goods. Ensure BOMs, routings, labour rates, and overhead allocations accurately reflect ERP parameters.

* Variance & Performance Analysis:
Analyse manufacturing costs, production volumes, productivity, yield, scrap, OEE, labour efficiency, and conversion costs against budget and forecast.

* Inventory & Working Capital Oversight:
Provide financial governance across stock control processes, review stock movements, manage slow-moving/obsolescence provisions, and validate physical cycle counts.

* Controlling & Month-End Closing:
Oversee monthly closing activities, journal entries, accruals, variance postings, and reconciliations in coordination with Group Finance.

* Cost Reduction & Continuous Improvement:
Partner with operations on continuous improvement and lean manufacturing projects to identify, validate, and track tangible cost-saving and efficiency benefits.

* Budgeting, Forecasting & Decision Support:
Lead plant budgeting and re-forecasting cycles, build robust business cases for Cap Ex projects, and evaluate operational investments (ROI/payback).

What We Are Looking For

* Experience:

Factory / costings or operations finance experience within a manufacturing environment

* Costing Expertise:
Solid grounding in standard costing, manufacturing variance analysis, inventory accounting, and cost centre management.

* Systems & Analytics:
Strong proficiency in Excel and experience with modern ERP environments (e.g., Infor M3, SAP, Oracle).

* Business Partnering

Skills:

Proven ability to build credibility with non-finance stakeholders (Plant Managers, Engineers, Operations Leads) and challenge status-quo decisions effectively.

* Education:

Degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or Industrial Engineering. Recognised professional accounting qualification (CIMA, ACCA, ACA or equivalent) is desirable.

* Right to Work:
Must have full eligibility to work in the UK on an indefinite basis

Application via CV