Financial Accountant Ref. 3635

Job Description

Salary: London: £47,677 or £49,065 (dependent on experience)

Cheltenham: £45,331 or £46,739 (dependent on experience)

Flexible working: due to its sensitive nature this role is office-based and home-working will not be possible. We value a good work-life balance and offer part-time (minimum 4 days), compressed hours, and flexibility around start and finish times. Full time hours are up to 37 hours, depending on location.

About us
MI5 keeps the country safe from serious threats like terrorism and attempts by states to harm the UK, its people and way of life. We carry out investigations by obtaining, analysing and assessing intelligence, and then work with a range of partners, including MI6 and GCHQ to disrupt these threats. Through our protective security arm, we provide advice and guidance to government, businesses and other organisations about how to keep themselves safe. A role in MI5 means you’ll do unique and challenging work in a supportive and encouraging environment, making a real difference to UK national security.

The role
Our finance teams keep internal spending on-track, which makes them critical to our work. As a Financial Accountant, you could be working in one of the various teams across our finance function. During the recruitment process, we’ll get to know you and assess which area best reflects your strengths and interests.

Financial Analysis
One area you could join is Financial Analysis. This team provides key insights that guide decision-making across the organisation. As a Financial Accountant here, you’ll be responsible for key month-end activities and ensuring reports are accurate. You’ll keep our financial systems reliable by maintaining strong controls, and you’ll use management reports to provide insightful analysis for senior managers. You’ll manage all month-end activity, approve journals, support budget profiling and produce forecasts. You’ll explain significant changes in forecasts or actuals where needed, produce management reports and build collaborative relationships with stakeholders, while leading your own small team.

Financial Accounting and Reporting
Or you could join our Financial Accounting and Reporting team. They handle the summary, analysis and reporting of financial transactions made by the agencies. In this area, you’ll interpret data and carry out analysis that gives senior managers the assurance they need, ensuring the right information reaches the right people. You’ll gather supporting information in line with accounting standards, query and challenge data, and ensure everything is documented clearly for audit purposes. You’ll analyse monthly balance sheet reconciliations, interpret financial data for the annual report and accounts, complete the NAO disclosure checklist and escalate potential issues when needed. In all you do, you’ll always communicate clearly when explaining how data aligns with standards and maintain strong controls to keep information accurate.

Financial Operations
Finally, there’s Financial Operations. This team manages accounts payable, accounts receivable, expenses and cash management services. As a Financial Accountant in this team, you’ll develop a detailed understanding of financial objectives, transactions and business areas, and you’ll bring structure to delivery. You’ll also ensure operations can respond to different needs while following standard guidelines and frameworks. You’ll promote a culture of excellent customer service, manage internal controls, monitor performance against agreed targets and become a trusted expert in your area. You’ll advise business units on financial processes, support transaction-processing services, assess the impact of changes, maintain the integrity of data in the finance system and oversee audit requests, working closely with clients to spot opportunities for improvement.

There are many different areas in the finance function you could join or explore during your career with us. Find out more about these roles on our Finance careers page.

About you
You’ll be part-qualified in ACCA, CIMA or equivalent, with demonstrable experience in a similar role within the public sector. Organised, positive, and eager to learn, you value teamwork, innovation and making an impact. You’ll work professionally and collaboratively, enjoy solving problems as part of a team, and you’ll be skilled at building strong relationships and negotiating with key stakeholders. All your skills will be underpinned by a passion for finance and aptitude for figures and spreadsheets.

You’ll be working towards a CCAB (Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies) or CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) qualification and have some supervisory experience. To be considered part-qualified, you’ll have completed the Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills modules of ACCA and ideally be studying towards Strategic Professional, or you’ll have completed the Operational and Management levels of CIMA and be working towards Strategic Level. Degree exemptions that cover these requirements are also accepted, as long as you can provide evidence from the appropriate governing body.

If, after considering our requirements, you feel your current skills don’t align with this role, don’t worry, we have a range of other opportunities coming up. These include:

Trainee Finance Officer Scheme: ideal for those just starting their finance career, with no prior qualifications or experience in a financial setting

Payments and Banking: open to candidates with five GCSEs (grade 4/C or above, including English and Maths), or equivalent Level 2 qualifications

Finance Officer: for candidates with proven financial experience and who are working towards Level 4 AAT, or who hold a 2:1 or higher in a finance/accounting degree that’s accredited by a financial body like ACCA or CIMA

Finance Manager (currently live): for established professionals with a CCAB (Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies) or CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) qualification. Proven management skills and experience working within a public sector environment.

To be notified of any upcoming opportunities in our Finance team, we recommend you sign up to job alerts on our website.

Training and development
From the moment you join us, you’ll be fully supported. If you’re committed to growing your skills, we’ll fund your training and assist you in gaining financial qualifications.

As you complete your studies, you’ll benefit from a generous paid study-leave package, tailored to the qualification you’re pursuing. You’ll also have support and guidance from your line manager, and other experienced staff, along with access to internal communities, support networks, and mentors. If you’re successful in your application, we’ll ask that you remain within the Finance Capability for a minimum of five years.

Rewards and benefits
You’ll receive a starting salary of £47,677 or £49,065 in London and in Cheltenham you’ll receive a starting salary of £45,331 or £46,739, plus other benefits including:

• 25 days’ annual leave, automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days’ public and privilege holidays
• opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
• a dedicated development budget
• an interest-free season ticket loan
• an excellent pension scheme
• a cycle to work scheme
• facilities such as a gym, restaurant, and on-site coffee bars (depending on your location)
• paid parental and adoption leave

Equal opportunities
At MI5 diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website.

We’re Disability Confident
MI5 is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions' Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident Leader, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential minimum criteria for this position, will be offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so. (This is known as the Offer of an Interview.) To secure an interview for this role, the minimum criteria (in order of application process) are:

1. passing the eligibility stage
2. being part qualified in ACCA, CIMA or equivalent
3. demonstrable experience in a similar role
4. experience working within a finance team in a public sector role
5. a strong motivation for applying to work for MI5 as a Financial Accountant

There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best, see our website for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.

What to expect
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here’s a brief overview of each stage, in order:

1. we’ll ask you to complete our pre-screening questions to find out if you meet our criteria. If you do, we’ll invite you to begin an application
2. you’ll need to create an account and complete an online registration form, providing contact details and equal opportunities information
3. you’ll then be invited to complete an online application form
4. if successful at this stage, you may then be invited to a final interview, which will include competency and technical questions and further exploration of your motivation to work for the UK’s Intelligence Services.

We recognise that the end of the financial year is an extremely busy time and for this reason we will not commence interviews until mid-April.

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6-9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you to continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before you apply
To work at MI5, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. Read about our eligibility criteria.

This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. Find out more about the vetting process.

Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practice and will help you to manage your application with us more securely.

These roles are based in London or Cheltenham so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application. An interest-free loan is available to assist with relocating to London into privately rented accommodation to take up the offer of employment.

Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.

Right to withdraw statement:
Please be aware that we reserve the right to bring forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful of this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.