Finance Business Partner

Our Finance team are looking for an experienced Finance Business Partner to join them. 

As a Sector Finance Business Partner at Baringa, you will operate as a trusted commercial advisor to sector and business unit leadership teams. You will take a true seat at the leadership table, bringing the financial insight, challenge and commercial judgement needed to help sectors execute their strategy and deliver sustainable, high-margin profitable growth.

You will translate financial performance, project economics, demand, pricing, utilisation, cost and margin data into clear, action-oriented insight. The expectation is that you help leadership teams understand what is really driving performance, where value is being created or lost, and what action is needed to improve outcomes.

A core part of the role is building commercial capability in the sector. You will coach partners, project partners and project managers to manage work with stronger commercial rigour through D365, including project set-up, time discipline, revenue recognition, WIP, invoicing, debt, cash collection, pricing and margin management.

You will work closely with FP&A, Data & Insights, Finance Operations, Staffing & Utilisation, People, Legal and Sector Business Managers to provide joined-up commercial support. The role requires someone who can balance senior-level strategic conversations with the detailed operational grip needed to turn insight into action.

What you will be doing

• Act as the visible face of Finance for the sector, building trusted relationships with sector leadership, BU leads, partners, project partners and project managers.
• Take an active seat in sector leadership conversations, using financial insight and commercial judgement to challenge performance, shape decisions and support execution of the sector strategy.
• Turn financial and operational data into clear, actionable insight; connecting revenue, demand, utilisation, pricing, cost, margin, debt and cash performance to the strategic choices facing the sector.
• Support high-margin profitable growth by identifying performance and operational risks, margin leakage, pricing opportunities, delivery inefficiencies and areas where leadership action is needed.
• Lead sector and BU performance reviews, including client, account and project-level deep dives into margin, bill rates, team shape, utilisation, fixed price delivery, WIP and cash collection.
• Coach sector teams on commercial rigour through D365, helping them manage the full project lifecycle effectively from opportunity and project set-up through time recording, revenue recognition, invoicing, cash collection and project closure.
• Use D365 and Power BI reporting to improve the quality, consistency and timeliness of commercial conversations, while actively identifying data quality issues, process gaps and reporting improvements.
• Partner with FP&A on forecasting, planning and scenario analysis, ensuring sector plans are stretching, credible and aligned to strategic priorities, cost envelopes and margin expectations.
• Prepare and review monthly sector and BU performance materials, management account commentary and inputs to senior leadership packs, ensuring the message is concise, accurate and focused on the “so what”.
• Provide ad hoc commercial support to bids, pricing decisions and business cases, challenging assumptions and helping teams understand the margin, risk and cash implications of proposed work.
• Work with Finance Operations to improve working capital outcomes, using sector relationships to unblock billing, addressable debt, aged WIP and cash collection issues.
• Collaborate across Baringa Enablement, including People, Staffing & Utilisation, Legal, Data & Insights and Sector Business Managers, to provide joined-up commercial support to the sector.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of Finance Business Partnering, sharing insight, raising standards across the team and helping codify what excellent sector partnering looks like.

Your skills and experience 

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Qualified accountant, ideally with 5+ years post-qualified experience.
• Strong commercial finance experience, ideally gained in a professional services or project-based environment.
• Deep understanding of project economics, including revenue recognition, utilisation, pricing, team shape, bill rates, margin, WIP, debt and cash.
• Ability to turn complex financial and operational data into clear insight, focused narrative and practical actions for senior non-finance stakeholders.
• Strong knowledge of forecasting, planning, management reporting and performance management processes.
• Confident using finance systems and reporting tools, with experience of D365 desirable.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to land key messages clearly and influence at leadership level.
• Credible and mature stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to challenge assumptions and hold senior stakeholders to account in a constructive way.
• Proactive, resilient and comfortable operating at pace, balancing strategic priorities with the detailed follow-through required to drive outcomes.
• Coaching mindset, with the ability to build commercial capability in sector teams and raise the standard of project-level financial management.

What a career at Baringa will give you 

Putting People First.

Baringa is a People First company and wellbeing is at the forefront of our culture. We recognise the importance of work-life balance and flexible working and provide our staff amazing benefits. Some of these benefits include: 

• Generous Annual Leave Policy: We recognise everyone needs a well-deserved break. We provide our employees with 5 weeks of annual leave, fully available at the start of each year. In addition to this, we have introduced our 5-Year Recharge benefit which allows all employees an additional 2 weeks of paid leave after 5 years continuous service. 

• Flexible Working: We know that the ‘ideal’ work-life balance will vary from person to person and change at different stages of our working lives. To accommodate this, we have implemented a hybrid working policy and introduced more flexibility around taking unpaid leave. 

• Corporate Responsibility Days: Our world is important to us, so all our employees get 3 every year to help social and environmental causes and increase our impact on the communities that mean the most to us. 

• Wellbeing Fund: We want to encourage all employees to take charge and prioritise their own wellbeing. We’ve introduced our annual People Fund to support this by offering every individual a fund to support and manage their wellbeing through an activity of their choice. 

• Profit Share Scheme: All employees participate in the Baringa Group Profit Share Scheme so everyone has a stake in the company’s success. 

Diversity and Inclusion

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe that creating an environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging is central to our culture and that diversity is paramount to driving creativity, innovation, and value for our clients and for our people. 

An award-winning workplace

You can be a part of our ‘Great Place to Work’ – with our commitment to women and well-being in the workplace for all. Click here to see some of our recent awards and how we’ve achieved this. 

Using business as a force for good. 

We maintain high standards of environmental performance and transparency, which can be seen through our commitment to Net Zero with our SBTI-verified Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions reduction targets and our support of the Better Business Act. We report our progress publicly and ensure that we are also externally assessed and scored through organisations like CDP and EcoVadis - helping us to continually identify where we can improve. 

We have a long legacy of supporting the communities in which we work, and offer a variety of ways to contribute, by putting people first and creating impact that lasts. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agenda is about giving back to the communities in which we live and work by sharing our skills, talent and time. In essence, we aim to empower and encourage everyone in the firm to contribute to the things we care about, and support registered charities and organisations with a clear social or environmental purpose to increase the positive impact they can have.