Senior Management Accountant (WCA) Full Time NEW

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us.

Please see below for the detailed job description of the role.

This post is only open to internal applicants

Main duties of the job

This role will provide career break cover for the Wessex Cancer Alliance (WCA), hosted by UHS.

Job Summary

• Support the Senior Finance Manager in providing financial control, guidance, and strategic advice across a corporate department or hosted service (the WCA). Work closely with senior operational leaders, budget holders, finance colleagues, auditors, NHS organisations, and external consultants.
• Play a key role in financial decision-making within the corporate department or hosted service, supporting business planning, budgeting, and financial performance management.
• Produce and analyse monthly financial reports, identify trends and variances, and recommend solutions to improve performance.
• Advise and support budget holders, contribute to service developments and cost improvement programmes, and support the development of colleagues and the improvement of financial processes.

Working for our organisation

University Hospital Southampton is one of England’s largest acute teaching Trusts, offering a wide range of learning and development opportunities to support your career aspirations.

Located on the south coast with an international airport and direct rail links to London, Southampton offers an ideal setting to live and work, with the New Forest, South Downs and Jurassic Coast.

We believe that using technology wisely shows strong time management and commitment to innovation. However, personalising your recruitment application to highlight your unique skills and experiences is crucial. Relying too heavily on generic, AI-generated content instead of drawing from your own strengths and accomplishments may lead to your application being rejected if multiple candidates present identical or similar information.

At UHS, we’re committed to providing a flexible working environment where possible. Whether you are balancing family, study, or your wellbeing with your career, we want to support you so you can help our patients.

At UHS, we proudly champion individuality, recognising that outstanding care is only possible with a diverse, inclusive team. We’re committed to creating an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory environment where everyone feels valued, safe, and empowered to make a meaningful impact in our communities. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences to join us in building a healthcare community where everyone can belong, thrive, and contribute.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

General Duties

• Support the Strategic Finance Team with the financial evaluation of annual business plans for the hosted service to ensure consistency with corporate objectives.
• Support the Strategic Finance Team with costing approved annual business plans into detailed annual budgets for the hosted service.
• Lead on the production of monthly finance reports and budget statements, detailing actual performance against plan, analysing, interpreting, and reporting any variances and proactively working to resolve any issues that need further investigation within agreed policies and procedures.
• Provide guidance and training on all operational financial management issues in line with the Budget Policy and the Trust Standing Financial Instructions. Provide budget holders with appropriate budgeting and accounting systems training.
• Respond to and resolve complex queries from budget managers, advising and supporting them to understand their financial performance, including any variance from plan.
• Ensure that regular liaison takes place between the management accounting team and budget holders to ensure that budgets are formulated accurately and managed appropriately during the year.
• Assist budget holders in understanding the relationship between their financial budgets, e-rostering, WTE budgets by utilising and interrogating all relevant databases.
• Assist the Strategic Finance Team with evaluating the cost of service developments for inclusion in business cases (or MOUs) for the hosted service initiatives etc that includes designing and formatting of financial spreadsheets.
• Contribute to the preparation of financial forecasts by extracting information from the general ledger into a spreadsheet and manipulating data monthly to inform budget reviews and Trust monitoring returns.
• Work with the strategic finance team to ensure that robust Cost Improvement Plans are developed and monitored. Ensuring that corrective action is identified and implemented where this is required to achieve financial balance.
• Provide day to day management for the Management Accountant/s within the strategic finance team (if required), take responsibility for allocation of work, recruitment decisions, personal and career development, appraisals, absence management and first-line disciplinary/grievance matters that arise within the team.
• Attend and contribute to monthly and quarterly reporting meetings, as required.
• Work with the divisional departments to ensure the correct financial treatment of Divisional income and expenditure projects.
• Assist in the interpretation of stock variances and trends.
• Contribute to the review of Trust financial policies, procedures and processes. Implement procedures and processes to improve financial performance within the division.
• Participate in the induction and training of new finance staff within the Management Accounting Team.
• Cover for other Senior Management Accountants and deputise for the Senior Finance Manager where appropriate.

Person specification

Qualifications, Knowledge And Experience

Essential criteria

• Knowledge and expertise across a range of accounting areas acquired through professional accountancy qualifications (and membership) such as Certificate Level/Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) or working towards a CCAB accountancy qualification or educated to degree level with an equivalent level of knowledge and experience gained in a finance role.
• Detailed understanding of financial systems and general ledger transactions and reporting.
• Experience supervising a team.
• Detailed understanding of budgetary control processes.
• Understanding of financial information systems and ability to extract information in a form to support budget managers.
• Comfortable with IT and able to use spreadsheet modelling packages.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in an NHS finance environment.
• Experience with Oracle IT system.
• Line management experience.
• Able to work from home effectively / flexibly.