CFO job description: a UK template for 2026
A chief financial officer job description for a UK company of twenty to two hundred people should say five things: why the seat exists now, what the CFO owns and decides alone, who reports in, what experience the next three years need, and what success looks like at day ninety. The 2026 base band for the seat is £110,000 to £180,000, with a bonus of 20 to 40 per cent.
Role purpose
Write two or three sentences on why the company is hiring a CFO now rather than last year, naming the event that makes the seat full-time: a raise, a debt facility, an audit, an acquisition or a sale. Candidates read this paragraph first and decide from it whether the job is real. A purpose that could sit in any company’s advert attracts candidates who could work at any company.
Example: The company has grown past the point where the founders and an outsourced accountant can run its finances, and plans a Series B within eighteen months. The CFO will own the numbers, the cash and the raise, and sit on the leadership team as the chief executive’s partner on capital.
Reporting line and team
- Reports to the chief executive, with a standing line to the board or its audit committee.
- Leads the finance team: name the roles that exist today, such as a financial controller, a bookkeeper or an outsourced accountant, and the hires planned in year one.
- Works with the auditors, the bank and the investors, and says which of those relationships the CFO takes over on day one.
Responsibilities
- Cash flow forecasting, and the runway conversation nobody else wants to start
- Board and investor reporting that survives a hard question
- Pricing, margin and unit economics, usually the first thing they rebuild
- Fundraise preparation: the model, the data room, the diligence answers
- Managing the bookkeeper, the accountant and the audit relationship
- Building and leading the finance team, including the first financial controller or planning hire where there is none
- Financial controls, the month-end close and the audit, owned rather than delegated
- Tax, treasury and banking relationships, with the specialist advisers they need
- Commercial decisions with a financial edge: pricing, large contracts, and the business case for every significant hire or investment
Cut the list to what this CFO will actually own. A description that lists every finance task describes a function, and the candidates worth hiring are reading for the decisions.
Experience and qualifications
- Has held the CFO or finance director seat at a company of this size and stage, not only advised one.
- Has been through the event the purpose names, a raise, a facility or a sale, on the company side.
- ACA, ACCA or CIMA where auditors, lenders or an acquirer will ask; say plainly if the role does not need one, because venture-backed companies often prefer modelling and investor experience.
- Has built or led a finance team, and can name the hires they made and why.
- Sector experience where the economics differ: software, ecommerce, services and regulated sectors each have their own.
Salary and package
State the band. A full-time CFO in a UK company of twenty to two hundred people is paid a base of £110,000 to £180,000 in 2026, with a midpoint of £140,000, a bonus of 20 to 40 per cent of base, and in venture-backed companies an equity grant. Usually tied to cash, a raise closing or an exit milestone rather than revenue alone. A description without a band is read as one that will be negotiated down, and the strongest candidates stop reading.
| If the company is | Base band to state | What the description should stress |
|---|---|---|
| Seed to Series A, first finance leader | £100,000 to £130,000 | Often a finance director title, or a fractional CFO rather than a full-time one. |
| Series A to B, first CFO | £120,000 to £160,000 | Owns the raise, board reporting and unit economics. Equity does most of the work in the offer. |
| Series B to D, scaling | £150,000 to £200,000 | Has built a function before: controller, FP&A, a team of five to fifteen. |
| Pre-exit or private-equity backed | £160,000 to £220,000 | Has sat through diligence on the selling side. Transaction bonus common. |
What success looks like at day ninety
Put the measures in the description, not only in the offer letter. They tell candidates what the job is more precisely than any duty list, and they become the review the board holds at the end of the first quarter.
- A rolling 13-week cash forecast that has been reforecast at least twice and tracked against actuals, so you can see how close it runs, not just that it exists.
- One agreed set of numbers. The competing spreadsheets are retired, the board pack comes from that set, and the board has actually engaged with it rather than filed it.
- A written view of unit economics: what a customer costs to acquire, what one is worth, and the two or three changes that would move margin, each with a number against it.
What to leave out
- Bookkeeping and data entry, unless the honest job is a finance manager, in which case title it as one.
- A list of software beyond what the company actually runs. Say whether it is Xero or Sage and who reconciles it.
- Personality adjectives. Every description asks for a strategic, hands-on self-starter, and none of them filter anybody.
- Investor introductions as a duty. The CFO’s part in a raise is the model, the data room and diligence.
Before it goes out
If a search firm runs the hire, the description becomes its brief, and a retained search costs 25 to 33 per cent of first-year earnings. CFO executive search sets out how that search runs, the CFO salary page has the full package, and the fee worked through on a CFO costs year one line by line.
If writing the description shows that the work is two days a week rather than five, the right document is a fractional brief instead: how to hire a CFO, fractional or full time covers it, and the fractional CFO page sets out what the part-time seat owns.