Careers at British Council

The Role:

This role partners with the English & Exams (E&E) business to provide financial insight, planning, budgeting, forecasting, and performance analysis. Working closely with operational teams, it supports informed decision-making, risk management, and commercial performance, acting as a collaborative finance partner to maximise business impact.

Accountabilities:  

Business Partnering & Stakeholder Engagement

• Serve as a trusted finance partner to Finance Directors and Market Leads, providing decision support, financial insights, and profitability analysis to drive commercial performance and strategic outcomes.
• Enable stakeholders to understand financial performance by identifying cost drivers, KPIs, risks, and opportunities while building strong relationships across finance, programme delivery, and corporate services.
• Manage multiple stakeholder and product support requests, effectively prioritising work based on risk, business impact, urgency, and competing demands.

Operational Decision Support

• Develop financial analysis and business cases for Teaching Centres, delivery models, market expansion, property changes, and investment opportunities to support strategic decision-making.
• Produce cost-benefit, ROI, and payback analyses, alongside operational and commercial models, to optimise pricing, utilisation, and delivery channels.
• Conduct scenario and financial modelling to assess regulatory, tax, and organisational changes, supporting multi-year planning through revenue, margin, and cost forecasts.

Financial Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting

• Support annual planning, forecasting, reforecasting, and scenario modelling by consolidating inputs across business units and regions, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and alignment with approved assumptions and strategy.
• Provide clear financial guidance to non-finance stakeholders, explaining variances, managing budget and forecast queries, and supporting expenditure tracking and financial processes.

Financial Monitoring, Reporting & Analysis

• Prepare and deliver accurate management reporting, KPI dashboards, variance analysis, and performance insights, highlighting trends, key drivers, and emerging issues across Exams and Teaching.
• Produce ad hoc analysis and reporting to support business decisions, performance reviews, and leadership requirements, while ensuring data accuracy through close collaboration with the CoE and reporting teams.

Role specific knowledge and experience: 

Essential:

• Intermediate experience in financial management, FP&A, or management accounting.
• Strong financial modelling, forecasting and analytics skills.
• Strong data literacy (Power BI, dashboard creation).
• Experience providing financial support to operational teams with positive feedback.
• Strong communication skills, including story telling supported with data, and the ability to effectively explain financials to non‑finance colleagues.
• Experience handling multiple deadlines and working with a portfolio of activities.

Desirable:

• Experience in Exams, Teaching, or broader education / commercial service environments.
• Experience with SAP or similar ERP platforms.
• Experience with Anaplan or similar EPM platforms.

Role specific skills:

• Business Partnering: able to build trust and communicate financial information clearly to non‑finance teams.
• Financial Acumen: solid understanding of budgeting, forecasting and financial performance drivers.
• Analytical Skills: able to prepare meaningful internal variance analysis and identify early warning indicators.
• Multi‑tasking and prioritisation: able to manage multiple demands and deadlines.
• Collaboration: strong relationship‑building skills across dispersed teams.
• EPM System Expertise (preferably Anaplan): confident in both planning and reporting functions.

Language Requirements:

The British Council systems and global processes operate in English. Written and verbal proficiency in English is required.

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The Role:

Leads the Centre of Excellence (CoE) function, ensuring high-quality financial data, standardised processes, and strong governance across English & Exams. Oversees insights analysts, drives data integrity and process optimisation, and enables effective planning, forecasting, reporting, and decision-making through reliable financial information and operational excellence.

Accountabilities:  

Data Quality & Reconciliation Oversight

• Act as the subject matter expert for E&E financial data, ensuring data quality, consistency, and accurate reconciliations across SAP, Anaplan, reporting templates, and regional records.
• Monitor key financial datasets, identify variances and trends, and provide clear narratives and insights to support planning, forecasting, reporting, and informed decision-making.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation and collaborate closely with Business Partners to ensure alignment between financial data inputs and business-facing outputs.

Process Standardisation & Efficiency

• Leads standardisation of financial processes, reporting, and automation initiatives to improve efficiency, consistency, and internal controls.

Internal Financial Support for E&E

• Deliver accurate, timely, and reconciled financial information, financial summaries, and trend analyses to support effective performance reviews and business decision-making.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to resolve data discrepancies, improve reporting quality, and maintain consistent data definitions for comparability across regions and markets.

Line Management & Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team, setting clear objectives, managing performance, and building capability to deliver high-quality financial planning, reporting, and analytical insights.
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive team culture while effectively prioritising and allocating workloads to ensure successful delivery across multiple country demands and stakeholder requirements.

Governance, Controls & Internal Assurance

• Supports BDS compliance, audits, and assurance activities while strengthening data governance, documentation standards, master data structures, and reporting frameworks to improve financial control, consistency, and insights across markets, regions, and consolidated results.

Role specific knowledge and experience: 

Essential:

• Significant experience in financial data analysis, FP&A, management accounting or similar.
• Experience in leading data quality and reconciliation processes.
• Experience with Anaplan or similar EPM platforms.
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders in a matrix or multi‑country organisational context.
• Demonstrated ability to work with complex financial datasets across multiple markets or business units.
• Strong capability in financial modelling, forecasting and analytics.
• Ability to simplify complexity for senior executives.
• Strong data literacy (Power BI, dashboarding and data modelling), as well as good business story telling with data.

Desirable:

• Track record of delivering accurate financial reporting and analysis to tight deadlines.
• Experience with SAP or similar ERP platforms.
• Experience delivering financial training or capacity‑building.

Role specific skills:

• Advanced data quality and reconciliation skills – able to identify inconsistencies and guide corrective action.
• Analysis and variance report preparation – able to interpret data patterns and provide succinct preliminary insights.
• Team leadership – able to coach, develop and manage a small team.
• EPM systems proficiency – strong working knowledge of Anaplan, and experience working with SAP and associated reporting tools.
• Accuracy and attention to detail – ensuring high‑integrity financial data across markets and regions.
• Communication skills – able to explain financial data clearly to finance and non‑finance audiences.

Language Requirements:

The British Council systems and global processes operate in English. Written and verbal proficiency in English is required.