In partnership with
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Senior Finance Recruitment
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Issue 03 · May 2026
Finance Hiring Is Changing
Salary data from 20,000+ finance professionals
Live roles · Market insights · Expert commentary
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Welcome to the Harper May newsletter — a fortnightly snapshot of the UK senior finance hiring market, written by the people who do the placements.
No fluff, no filler. Just what we're seeing, what it means, and roles worth knowing about.
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Market Intelligence
What We're Seeing Right Now
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FP&A is the thinnest talent pool in senior finance
Of the 57,305 senior finance professionals we track, only 2,719 sit at Tier 4 — FP&A Managers, Heads of FP&A, and Heads of Commercial Finance. That's fewer than a fifth of the Tier 3 controller population (17,494). Yet Tier 4 has the highest movement rate in the market at 18.0%, meaning the few who are available disappear quickly. If you're briefing an FP&A search right now, expect materially thinner shortlists than at any other seniority level.
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Hiring volume is down 22.4% YoY — but read it carefully
Comparing Jan–Apr 2025 to Jan–Apr 2026, new senior finance starts fell from 2,606 to 2,021 across all tiers. The sharpest drops hit FP&A Manager (−31.6%) and Finance Manager (−30.6%); CFO-level hiring was the most resilient at −12.1%. For businesses hiring now, fewer moves means more available candidates sitting in longer tenures — but it also means those candidates need a compelling reason to move. Speed and clarity in your process matter more than ever.
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NetSuite experience is rarer than most boards assume
Only 846 of the 57,305 professionals in our database mention NetSuite — just 1.5% of the pool. SAP (including S/4HANA) appears on 5,569 profiles, more than NetSuite, Oracle, and Dynamics 365 combined. If NetSuite is your platform and you need a finance leader who's implemented or optimised it, you're fishing in a pool roughly six times smaller than SAP. Factor that into your timeline and salary positioning from day one.
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Head of FP&A tenure sits at just 3.0 years — plan accordingly
Our tenure data shows Heads of FP&A hold their seat for a median of 3.0 years, the shortest of any senior finance role we track. FP&A Managers (3.3 years) and Senior Finance Managers (3.2 years) follow closely. By contrast, Financial Controllers average 4.8 years. For boards building succession plans, this means your FP&A leadership layer will churn roughly 50% faster than your controllership — a rhythm worth designing around, not reacting to.
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Exclusive Data
Salary Spotlight
Based on 20,000+ data points from our candidate database and salary survey.
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| Role |
Lower |
Median |
Upper |
Top |
| Finance Director |
£100k |
£112k |
£130k |
£200k |
| Head of Finance |
£75k |
£90k |
£110k |
£160k |
| Head of FP&A |
£90k |
£100k |
£120k |
£160k |
| Financial Controller |
£70k |
£80k |
£90k |
£120k |
| FP&A Manager |
£70k |
£80k |
£90k |
£120k |
| Finance Manager |
£60k |
£70k |
£80k |
£110k |
| Mgmt Accountant |
£50k |
£55k |
£65k |
£85k |
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Benefits Benchmark
Average package across senior finance respondents
From our latest salary survey of senior finance professionals — figures shown are the cohort average.
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2026 UK Finance Salary Guide
Coming soon. Subscribers get it first.
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Deep Dive
How Do You Test a CFO's Real Capital-Raising Ability Before a Funding Round?
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With CFO-level hiring proving the most resilient tier in 2026 — down just 12.1% YoY against a 22.4% market-wide decline — the businesses still making moves at the top are the ones preparing for capital events. But our conversations with PE operating partners and founder-CEOs keep surfacing the same anxiety: how do you distinguish a CFO who can genuinely steer a raise from one who simply presents well in interviews?
This is not a theoretical question. A mis-hire at CFO level ahead of a funding round doesn't just cost a salary and six lost months. It erodes investor confidence at the exact moment you need it most. Our latest briefing sets out a practical framework for boards to stress-test a candidate's real capital-raising ability — their negotiation instincts, their fluency with institutional investors, and their capacity to build the financial infrastructure that due diligence demands.
If you're planning a raise in the next 12 months and the CFO seat is open or uncertain, this is worth ten minutes. Read the full piece →
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AI in Finance
One tool. One habit. No hype.
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This issue's tool
Wispr Flow · voice-to-text built for AI prompts
Speak to Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM. Wispr transcribes live with punctuation, context-aware formatting, and a custom dictionary that learns your vocabulary.
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Most finance leaders we talk to have started using LLMs daily — drafting commentary, summarising calls, stress-testing scenarios. The bottleneck isn't the model. It's the prompt: how much context can you give before you give up typing?
Five minutes of speaking gives a model roughly 750 words of context. Five minutes of typing is maybe 200. The CFO who dictates a board-pack walkthrough to Claude gets measurably better output than the one who taps in three bullet points — same model, much better brief.
If you haven't tried voice-to-LLM yet, this is the lowest-friction upgrade you can make to your AI usage. Pair Wispr Flow with Claude or whatever you already use. Within a week your output gets noticeably sharper — not because the model changed, but because the brief did.
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Hiring a finance leader and want to know what good AI fluency looks like in interview? Reply to start the conversation — we run that one regularly.
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Now Hiring
Live Roles
We're working on 8 live vacancies across London — refreshed daily.
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Management Accountant
Retail · City of London
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£45k - 50k per year
View role →
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Financial Controller
Technology · City of London
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£80k - 90k per year
View role →
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Finance Analyst
Business Services · Central London
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£50,000 per annum
View role →
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Finance Business Partner
Media & Communications · Central London
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£80,000 per annum
View role →
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Finance Director
Financial Services · City of London
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£112.5k - 125k per year
View role →
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Planning a senior finance hire in Q3? Talk to us now, not then.
The strongest shortlists are built before a role goes live. If you have a mandate taking shape — or a gap you know is coming — a 20-minute scoping call with our team now means a sharper, faster process when the brief lands.
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The Harper May Team
Senior Finance Recruitment
+44 (0)20 3900 1811
You're receiving this because you applied for a role through Harper May or shared your CV with us. No hard feelings if you'd rather not hear from us.
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