Senior Finance Technician
East Midlands Shared Services · Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom · hybrid
Senior Technician – Finance
Build your finance career where it matters. Support the services that shape Nottingham.
📍 Nottingham / Hybrid
💰 Salary: GLPC-F £33,673 - £36,581
🏢 Finance & Resources Directorate
Start your next chapter at the heart of one of the country's most ambitious finance improvements.
Nottingham City Council has changed significantly in the last twelve months through a programme of modernisation and re-organisation. The leadership team is revitalising the focus on outcomes and effectiveness whilst building financial sustainability. The Senior Technician roles are key to the onward progression and embedding of this change.
At Nottingham City Council, finance isn't just about numbers – it's about making decisions that shape services, support communities, and deliver real change for Nottingham residents. As a Senior Technician, you'll work across the whole finance service, supporting the teams that produce the financial analysis, reporting, and advice that enables the council to deliver for its communities.
This is a role for someone in the early stages of their finance career who is ready to take the next step – building on your existing skills, developing your understanding of local government finance, and making a real contribution to the council's financial resilience.
About the Role
You'll provide accurate and timely financial support, advice, and challenge to a range of programmes, projects, business cases, and decisions. You'll work across the finance service, supporting the teams that produce the financial information, analysis, and reporting that informs decision-making at every level.
Your work will be varied and will develop your skills across a range of financial disciplines. You'll support the completion of statutory and non-statutory returns, including grant claims, ensuring the accuracy of financial information and that grants are maximised. You'll support the maintenance of corporate registers that support year-end statutory disclosures, such as Grant Income. You'll produce corporate reconciliations for assigned areas, which may include bank reconciliation, debtors, reserves, Trial Balance, grant income, and recharges. You'll prepare audit working papers for assigned areas, ensuring they comply with audit requirements.
The reality of the role: You'll be joining at a pivotal moment. The council has set a balanced budget for 2026/27 with a forecast surplus of £1.063m, delivered a £20.4m net underspend in 2025/26, and reduced debt from £827m to £292m in six years. But significant pressures remain – the MTFP projects a cumulative budget gap of £37.107m over four years, and the council has identified £11.948m in new savings for 2026/27, with a target of £50m over the MTFP period.
Your work will directly support the council's response to these challenges. You'll support Finance colleagues to ensure that the forecasted financial position is an accurate and true reflection of the business position. You'll be proactive in identifying further training requirements of managers using the forecasting system, what corrective action is required, and supporting managers in developing those actions. You'll also identify business risks and inform managers so they can be addressed.
This is not a role where you'll be on your own with no support. You'll be part of a team, working under the guidance of qualified accountants and professional Finance colleagues, with opportunities to develop your skills and take on more responsibility as you grow.
Your Influence and Responsibility
- Financial support: You'll provide accurate and timely professional support, advice, and challenge to programmes, projects, business cases, and decisions as directed by the Finance Business Partners and Accountants.
- Compliance and control: You'll contribute towards ensuring that financial policies, procedures, and controls within your team are compliant with all relevant legislation, codes, regulations, guidelines, standards, and best practice.
- Reporting and returns: You'll support the completion of statutory and non-statutory returns, including grant claims, ensuring accuracy, timely completion, and that grants are maximised.
- Analysis and insight: You'll ensure that the advice you provide enables your team to create analysis to inform policy and funding decisions, with consideration of constitutional process.
- Collaboration: You'll liaise with other external organisations regarding data collection, financial analysis, and benchmarking.
What You'll Lead and Influence
- Supporting the completion of statutory and non-statutory returns, including grant claims
- Supporting the maintenance of corporate registers to support year-end statutory disclosures
- Supporting Business Partners to ensure that forecasted financial positions are accurate and true reflections of the business position
- Providing accurate and timely professional support, advice, and challenge to programmes, projects, business cases, and decisions
- Supporting managers in the development, achievement, and updating of business plans to ensure the robustness of financial planning
- Preparing audit working papers for assigned areas
- Producing good quality and fully supported corporate reconciliations for assigned areas
- Promoting correct use of the Chart of Accounts across the Council
- Ensuring corporate timelines, standards, and processes are applied to the budget and closedown process
Who We're Looking For
You're someone in the early stages of your finance career who is ready to take the next step. You may already be working in a finance role and looking to develop your skills in a larger, more complex organisation. You may be part-qualified and looking for a role that will support your development. Or you may have relevant experience and be looking for an opportunity to build your career in local government finance.
Whatever your background, you'll bring a willingness to learn, a commitment to accuracy, and a desire to make a real contribution to the council's financial resilience.
You'll bring:
- An understanding of accounting principles and practices and their applicability to local government
- Able to utilise a range of systems to produce easily understandable financial information
- Experience of providing information that supports decision making through financial analysis and option appraisals
- An ability to work on your own initiative with a minimum of supervision
- Financial and commercial awareness with strong analytical skills and a creative approach to problem solving
- An ability to assess risk whilst effectively supporting services and strategic priorities
- Ability to communicate to colleagues from other disciplines through strong communication skills
- An understanding of the current issues and challenges facing local government in general and Nottingham City Council in particular
You'll also bring the behaviours that make a great local government finance professional:
- A willingness to learn and develop – you're open to feedback, you look for ways to improve your own skills, and you take ownership of your time, wellbeing, and performance
- A collaborative approach – you work well with others, you deal with disagreement constructively, and you're honest about what's possible
- A proactive mindset – you act early when you spot risks, gaps, or unmet needs, and you suggest improvements for how you and your service work
- A commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion – you treat people fairly and with respect, you challenge bias and exclusion where you see it, and you value different perspectives
- A mission-driven, public service orientation – you're motivated by the knowledge that your work supports services that make a difference to people's lives
Why Nottingham, Why Now?
Few councils have undergone a change of this scale. Having rebuilt financial resilience and