Finance
Finance Recruitment Agency UK
Specialist Finance Recruitment From Finance Managers to CFOs
The best finance people don't simply tell you what happened last month.
They help you decide what happens next.
At C2 Recruitment, we help businesses across the UK recruit Finance professionals who bring financial control, commercial insight and better decision-making to their organisations.
From Management Accountants and Finance Managers through to Financial Controllers, Heads of Finance, Finance Directors and CFOs, we recruit across permanent, interim and contract Finance appointments.
But good Finance recruitment isn't about finding somebody with the right qualification and a similar job title.
It's about understanding what you actually need that person to do.
Are you trying to improve financial controls?
Build a Finance function?
Give the CEO better visibility of cash?
Improve forecasting?
Support rapid growth?
Strengthen commercial decision-making?
Prepare for investment?
Professionalise a founder-led business?
Or bring genuine financial leadership into the Boardroom?
Those are very different recruitment briefs.
And they need very different Finance people.
Good recruitment starts with understanding the problem before trying to solve it.
What Finance roles does C2 Recruitment recruit?
C2 recruits across a broad range of Finance and Accountancy appointments throughout the UK, including:
Senior Finance & Leadership
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Finance Director
Head of Finance
Group Finance Director
Commercial Finance Director
Financial Controller
Group Financial Controller
Commercial Finance & FP&A
Head of FP&A
FP&A Manager
FP&A Analyst
Commercial Finance Manager
Commercial Finance Business Partner
Finance Business Partner
Commercial Analyst
Qualified & Part-Qualified Finance
Management Accountant
Financial Accountant
Company Accountant
Finance Manager
Assistant Management Accountant
Part-Qualified Accountant
Transactional Finance & Finance Support
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Credit Control
Payroll
Pensions
Bookkeeping
Finance Assistants
Finance Administrators
The title, however, only tells us so much.
A Financial Controller in a £10m founder-led business can have a completely different job from a Financial Controller in a £200m group.
A Head of Finance may effectively be operating as the Finance Director.
And a CFO in a growing SME may need to be far more hands-on than somebody holding the same title in a large corporate.
Benchmark the size of the job – not simply the job title.
How do you recruit the right Finance professional?
We start by understanding what success actually looks like.
Not simply:
“We need a Financial Controller.”
But:
Why are you recruiting them?
What will they inherit?
What isn't working today?
What needs to change?
Who will they report to?
What decisions will they influence?
What does the Finance team look like?
How commercial does the role need to be?
What would you expect them to have achieved after 12 months?
Only then can you properly define the person you need.
Because two candidates can have almost identical CVs and deliver very different results.
We look beyond responsibility and try to understand impact.
What did they improve?
What did they build?
What did they change?
Did they improve cash flow?
Strengthen controls?
Reduce costs?
Improve forecasting?
Develop the Finance team?
Support an acquisition?
Introduce better management information?
Improve margin?
Help a business scale?
Influence a CEO or Board?
A CV tells us where somebody has worked. Our job is to understand what they can do for you.
Does a Finance candidate need experience in my sector?
Sometimes.
But not always.
This is an area where recruitment briefs can become unnecessarily restrictive.
There are Finance appointments where direct sector knowledge is incredibly valuable.
A Finance Director joining a complex multi-site retailer, for example, may benefit considerably from understanding stock, margin, markdown, property, seasonality, store payroll, ecommerce and working capital.
But there are also occasions when somebody from an adjacent sector brings exactly the commercial thinking the business needs.
So rather than automatically asking:
“Do they already work in our sector?”
we prefer to ask:
“Can they succeed in our business?”
The answer depends on the role, the organisation and the challenges the person will inherit.
Our established Retail Head Office recruitment network gives C2 particular experience recruiting Finance professionals into retail and consumer-facing businesses, where understanding the commercial drivers behind the numbers can be just as important as producing them.
Finance recruitment for Retail businesses
Retail Finance is about much more than producing a set of management accounts.
Stock.
Margin.
Markdown.
Promotions.
Store payroll.
Property costs.
Ecommerce.
Supplier terms.
Working capital.
Seasonality.
Peak trading.
New store investment.
A strong Retail Finance leader needs to understand how all of those things interact commercially.
C2 has specialised in Retail recruitment since 2008, recruiting across stores, operations, Head Office and senior leadership. (C2 Recruitment)
That wider understanding matters when recruiting Finance.
We don't just want to know whether somebody has worked for a retailer.
We want to know whether they understand how a retailer actually makes money.
Finance recruitment for Charities and Not-for-Profit organisations
Finance leadership can look very different again within the Charity sector.
Charities need strong financial controls and governance, but their Finance leaders may also need to understand restricted and unrestricted funds, reserves, funding, grants, reporting requirements and the responsibility that comes with managing money given to support a cause.
C2's specialist Charity Recruitment team recruits across Finance and Operations as well as wider leadership appointments within charities and not-for-profit organisations. (C2 Recruitment)
Whether you're recruiting a Finance Manager, Head of Finance or Finance Director, we look at both technical capability and the person's ability to operate successfully within a purpose-led organisation.
Because getting the numbers right matters.
Understanding what those numbers enable the organisation to achieve matters too.
Head of Finance or Financial Controller – which do I actually need?
This is a question worth asking before you start recruiting.
If your biggest requirement is around financial control, reporting, processes, compliance and making sure the numbers are accurate, you may need a strong Financial Controller.
If you increasingly need somebody involved in commercial decisions, forecasting, strategy, leadership, investment and supporting the CEO or Board, the role may be moving towards Head of Finance or Finance Director level.
Titles vary enormously between businesses, so we'd never recommend benchmarking the role on title alone.
The better question is:
What decisions do we need this person to make – and what level of experience will they need to make them well?
We've looked at this in more detail in our guide to when a growing retailer should hire a Head of Finance.
When should I recruit a CFO or Finance Director?
Not every business needs a CFO.
And appointing one too early can be just as unnecessary as waiting too long.
The requirement usually changes when the financial complexity and commercial decisions facing the organisation move beyond what the existing Finance structure was designed to handle.
That could be driven by rapid growth, investment, acquisition, international expansion, multiple locations, increasing working-capital requirements or simply a CEO who needs a genuine strategic Finance partner.
At this level, you're not just recruiting an accountant.
You're recruiting somebody who may influence some of the biggest decisions the business makes.
That's why senior Finance appointments can also be supported through C2's Executive Search capability, including Head of Finance, Financial Controller and Finance Director searches. (C2 Recruitment)
Can C2 headhunt senior Finance professionals?
Yes.
And for senior or particularly difficult Finance appointments, that can be essential.
Some of the strongest Finance leaders aren't actively looking for another job.
They're succeeding where they are.
They may not have updated their CV for years and they certainly aren't applying to every Finance Director vacancy they see online.
That doesn't mean they wouldn't move for the right opportunity.
It means somebody has to find them and start the conversation.
Depending on the assignment, our recruitment approach can include targeted advertising, our existing candidate network, database search, referrals, proactive sourcing, competitor mapping, direct approaches and Executive Search.
Because senior recruitment shouldn't simply ask:
“Who has applied?”
Sometimes the much better question is:
“Who should we be talking to?”
What should I look for when recruiting a senior Finance professional?
Qualifications matter.
ACA, ACCA, CIMA or another appropriate professional qualification may be an important requirement depending on the appointment.
But qualifications alone don't tell you whether somebody is going to transform your Finance function.
For senior roles, we want to understand what they have actually achieved.
What was the business like when they arrived?
What financial challenges did they inherit?
What did they personally change?
How did the business perform as a result?
How did they influence other departments?
Did they challenge the CEO when necessary?
Did they make complicated financial information understandable to non-finance people?
Could they build credibility with the Board?
Could they develop the team beneath them?
And perhaps most importantly:
Can they use the numbers to help the business make better decisions?
That's the difference between somebody who can report on a business and somebody who can help lead one.
How much should I pay a Finance professional?
There isn't one useful answer.
Finance salaries vary according to seniority, location, qualification, sector, company size, team responsibility, commercial scope and the complexity of the organisation.
Even identical job titles can command very different salaries.
That's why salary benchmarking should begin with the actual job, rather than simply the title.
What are you asking this person to own?
What decisions will they make?
Who do they report to?
What size team will they lead?
How difficult will the person be to find?
What are comparable candidates earning in the current market?
If we believe the salary is going to prevent you finding the calibre of person you need, we'll tell you.
There is little value in spending weeks searching for a candidate who doesn't exist at the salary being offered.
Good recruitment sometimes means challenging the brief before going to market.
Permanent, interim and contract Finance recruitment
Not every Finance problem requires the same hiring solution.
C2 can support Finance recruitment on a permanent, interim and contract basis, depending on the requirement.
A permanent appointment may be right when you're building long-term capability.
An interim Finance leader could make more sense during transformation, restructuring, systems implementation, rapid growth or while you recruit a permanent senior appointment.
Contract Finance professionals can also provide additional expertise or capacity around projects, reporting periods and periods of organisational change.
We'll discuss the requirement first rather than trying to force every vacancy into the same recruitment model.
Can C2 recruit Finance professionals anywhere in the UK?
Yes.
C2 recruits Finance professionals across the UK, supporting clients in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and throughout the wider UK.
We can also support businesses recruiting remotely, on a hybrid basis or across multiple locations.
Where appropriate, we can widen a search beyond the obvious local candidate pool.
Because local market knowledge matters. A local postcode doesn't.
Why choose C2 as your Finance recruitment agency?
C2 Recruitment has been recruiting specialist and senior professionals since 2008.
We're independent and deliberately boutique.
That matters because we don't believe recruitment improves simply by making everything bigger.
More CVs.
More recruiters.
More automation.
More noise.
We'd rather understand the role properly, search the right market and introduce people you'd genuinely want to employ.
Our approach combines specialist sector knowledge, established candidate networks, proactive sourcing, headhunting, modern recruitment technology and – importantly – people who will actually talk to you.
We believe in using technology where it makes recruitment better.
But we still believe in good old-fashioned customer service.
And if the person you need isn't actively looking?
We'll go and find them.
Finance Recruitment Agency – Frequently Asked Questions
What does a Finance recruitment agency do?
A Finance recruitment agency helps employers identify, assess and recruit Finance and Accountancy professionals. Depending on the role, this can include advertising, candidate database searches, networking, proactive sourcing, headhunting and Executive Search.
What Finance roles does C2 Recruitment specialise in?
C2 recruits Finance professionals from transactional and part-qualified appointments through to Management Accountants, Finance Managers, Financial Controllers, Heads of Finance, Finance Directors and CFOs.
Does C2 recruit qualified accountants?
Yes. C2 recruits qualified, part-qualified and qualified-by-experience Finance professionals depending on the requirements of the position.
Does C2 recruit CFOs and Finance Directors?
Yes. Senior Finance appointments including CFO, Finance Director, Head of Finance and Financial Controller can be recruited through our specialist recruitment and Executive Search services.
Can C2 approach Finance candidates who aren't actively job hunting?
Yes. For specialist and senior Finance vacancies, proactive sourcing and direct approaches can be an important part of the search. This allows us to consider relevant professionals who may be open to the right opportunity but aren't currently applying for jobs.
Does C2 recruit Finance roles outside London?
Yes. C2 recruits Finance professionals across the UK rather than limiting searches to London or other major cities.
Can C2 help us decide whether we need a Financial Controller, Head of Finance or Finance Director?
Yes – and we'd rather have that conversation before you start recruiting.
We'll look at the business, existing Finance structure, reporting lines, commercial challenges and what you need the new person to achieve.
Sometimes the right answer isn't the job title you originally had in mind.
Looking for a Finance recruitment agency?
If you're recruiting in Finance, tell us more than the job title.
Tell us about the business.
Tell us what's changing.
Tell us what's not working.
And tell us what you need this person to achieve.
We'll help you define the market, challenge the brief where necessary and find the people capable of making the difference.
You don't need more Finance CVs. You need the right Finance person.
C2 Recruitment – specialist Finance recruitment across the UK. Established 2008.