Job vacancy: Director of Operational Finance, NHS England, London

Job summary

Main area: Finance
Grade: ESM 1
Contract: Fixed term: 6 months (until 9th December 2025 - Secondment only for current NHS employees)
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 990-LDN-15215-E

Employer: NHS England
Employer type: NHS
Site: 10 South Colonnade
Town: London
Salary: £100,000 per annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 16/06/2025 23:59

Director of Operational Finance

ESM 1

Our Organisation

The NHS is building a culture that is positive, compassionate and inclusive – and we all have our part to play.

As employers we are committed to protecting and promoting the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all our colleagues. This underpins our values as set out in the NHS Constitution and supports us to be an Employer of Choice, while helping our colleagues to deliver high quality services for our patients and communities.

As a flexible employer, we want to support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern. In addition, although the role advertised may have a ‘home’ office base indicated, we remain committed to supporting flexibility around workplace locations. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

We are an accredited Living Wage Employer which means that every colleague working for our organisation and third-party contractors will earn a real Living Wage. We are one of over 15,000 organisations, who voluntarily chose to pay the real Living Wage.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

The RDoF would welcome an informal chat with anyone who may be interested in the role.

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

CCAB qualified with extensive experience and full up to date membership and continuing professional development

Desirable criteria

Educated to Masters’ degree level in a relevant discipline or equivalent level of experience of working in a similar level in a relevant discipline

Experience & Knowledge

Essential criteria

Experience at Deputy Director of Finance or equivalent level in the NHS or other public healthcare related industry
Knowledge and experience of current NHS financial frameworks, targets and regimes – provider and commissioner.
Excellent knowledge and experience of all aspects of financial governance such as internal audit, counter fraud and internal control and risk management systems
Track record of providing appropriate advice, support, judgements and decision making
Commercially aware, with significant expertise in such as areas as contract management, investment appraisal
An effective people manager, who sets high standards, motivates and develops staff and stakeholders and promotes personal, organisational and cultural development.
Significant experience of large scale short, medium and long-term planning and performance management processes - supporting both organisations which are succeeding and those which are failing
Experience of prioritising and managing significant resources including budgets in a way which delivers value for money.
Experience of planning and delivering large scale efficiency programmes.

Desirable criteria

Experience at Board level in both provider and commissioner sectors

Skills, Abilities & Attributes

Essential criteria

Able to work effectively between strategic and operational activities.
Ability to analyse complex problems qualitatively and quantitatively to facilitate the development of plans and processes which are shared and delivered across multiple teams
Demonstrated capacity to act on incomplete information, using experience to make inferences for decision making.
Able to manage own workload, working to tight and often changing timescales timescales. Able to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues.
Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
Excellent leadership skills which positively motivate, empower and engage staff with a clear vision and shared goals
Relevant experience of establishing and maintaining effective relationships with stakeholders both within the NHS and externally.
Effective negotiator with highly developed influencing skills to support agreements amongst a range of stakeholders with complex multi-dimensional challenges
Ability to give clear advice and guidance to a range of audiences
Excellent interpersonal skills, able to influence and manage difficult and sensitive issues and challenge constructively
Emotional resilience including when under pressure from senior and external stakeholders
Demonstrable commitment to and focus on quality, promoting high standards to consistently improve patient outcomes

Other

Essential criteria

Values based leadership style
Values diversity and difference operating with integrity and openness

Our commitments to you

We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better patient outcomes. We strive to ensure our people feel trusted, valued and empowered. We’re passionate about nurturing and developing people. When you join us, we want you to grow and excel, and we offer many opportunities for you to do that. We welcome your talent and enthusiasm irrespective of age, disability, neuro-divergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances. We have policies and procedures to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process, including the consideration of reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability and/or who are neuro-divergent.

We welcome applications from disabled candidates. If you meet all the essential criteria, you will be guaranteed an interview.

Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK under the Skilled Worker route are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

If applying for this role on a secondment basis, please make sure you have obtained prior agreement from your current line manager to apply for this position.

Please note that we currently do not accept applications via recruitment agencies.

In order to comply with the HM Government Functional Standard GovS 007, and specifically the Personnel Security Standards 2024, all individuals employed or contracted by NHS England are now required to undergo a Baseline Personnel Security Standards check.
All existing post-holders within NHS England will be required to complete the check as part of the wider roll out plan.

The NHS Business Services Authority is responsible for the processing of your application; a privacy notice is attached to advise you on how we will process your personal data.

If you have applied via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. If you are appointed to a post, information will also be transferred into the NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through NHS Jobs, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any emails sent to us via NHS Jobs. If you have a query relating to your application, please contact the recruitment team on [email protected] or 0300 330 1369. You can view our Privacy Notice here.

NHS England