FP&A Recruitment

Financial Planning & Analysis Recruitment

FD Capital recruits permanent FP&A professionals for UK businesses — from FP&A Analysts and FP&A Managers through to Heads of FP&A. Every candidate we place holds a recognised accountancy or finance qualification and has demonstrable experience in financial modelling, budgeting, forecasting and commercial finance analysis. Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of FD Capital and a Fellow of the ICAEW, leads our senior finance recruitment practice. We place FP&A professionals across technology and SaaS businesses, PE-backed portfolio companies, financial services firms and mid-market corporates. For engagement types other than permanent see our Fractional FP&A, Part-Time FP&A and Interim FP&A pages.

Call 020 3287 9501 or email recruitment@fdcapital.co.uk. Shortlists within three to seven working days.

FP&A Roles FD Capital Places

FP&A Analyst

The FP&A Analyst is the entry point to the function — responsible for building and maintaining financial models, preparing management reporting packs, performing variance analysis and supporting the budget and forecast cycles. Typical backgrounds include newly qualified ACA, ACCA or CIMA professionals with two to four years of post-qualification experience in a commercial finance environment. Strong Excel modelling skills are a minimum requirement; experience with planning tools such as Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Vena or Planful is increasingly common and commands a premium. For a full breakdown of what the role involves see our FP&A Job Description.

FP&A Manager

The FP&A Manager owns the planning cycle — running the budgeting and forecasting process, managing a small team of analysts, producing the management reporting and working directly with the CFO or Head of FP&A on strategic financial analysis. The FP&A Manager brief in PE-backed businesses often includes investor reporting, covenant modelling and preparation of the financial information pack for board and sponsor meetings. Candidates typically hold ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualifications with four to eight years of post-qualification experience, including demonstrable exposure to the full FP&A cycle rather than just financial reporting.

Head of FP&A

The Head of FP&A leads the entire planning and analysis function — setting the methodology, owning the long-range plan, managing the team, and acting as the senior commercial finance partner to the CEO and CFO. In businesses building a dedicated FP&A centre of excellence for the first time, the Head of FP&A designs the function, selects the planning technology, recruits the team and establishes the processes and standards that will govern how the business plans and analyses its financial performance. This is a senior appointment typically reporting to the CFO and requiring significant prior experience of running an FP&A function rather than simply working within one.

What FD Capital Looks for in Permanent FP&A Candidates

Modelling capability

The defining technical skill for FP&A professionals is financial modelling — the ability to build clean, auditable, dynamic financial models that the business can rely on for planning and decision support. FD Capital assesses modelling capability directly in the screening process, not by proxy through qualification status. The quality, structure and auditability of a candidate’s models matters more than the complexity of the tools they use — a well-constructed three-statement model in Excel tells us more than a poorly designed Anaplan implementation.

Commercial orientation

The best FP&A professionals are commercially curious — interested in understanding what drives the numbers, not just reporting them. They build relationships with operational and commercial colleagues, challenge assumptions in the budget process constructively, and provide analysis that influences real decisions rather than analysis that is filed and forgotten. FD Capital specifically screens for commercial orientation in FP&A candidates because it is the quality that most commonly separates high-performing FP&A professionals from technically competent but commercially passive ones. The ACCA and CIMA qualifications both place commercial finance at their core, which is why CIMA-qualified candidates are particularly common in FP&A roles.

Systems and tools

Demand for FP&A professionals with experience of dedicated planning platforms — Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Vena, Pigment, Planful — has grown significantly as businesses invest in replacing spreadsheet-based planning with purpose-built tools. FD Capital maintains a candidate pool that spans both traditional Excel-based FP&A and platform-native professionals, and we match systems experience to the specific technology environment the hiring business operates rather than assuming platform skills are universally applicable.

Sectors Where FD Capital Places FP&A Professionals

Technology and SaaS

SaaS businesses have specific FP&A requirements that differ from traditional corporate finance environments — ARR and MRR forecasting, cohort analysis, unit economics modelling (CAC, LTV, payback period), and the financial metrics that Series A, B and growth-stage investors expect to see. FD Capital has placed FP&A professionals into technology businesses from seed stage through to pre-IPO, and we understand what SaaS FP&A looks like at each stage of the growth curve.

Private equity-backed businesses

PE-backed businesses operate to a more rigorous financial reporting cadence than most independent businesses, with weekly and monthly reporting to the sponsor as well as board-level management accounts. FP&A professionals in PE-backed businesses need to be comfortable with the investor pack format, covenant modelling and the level of analytical rigour that PE sponsors apply to portfolio company performance. FD Capital’s broader private equity finance practice means our FP&A candidates for PE-backed roles are pre-screened for this specific context.

Financial services and FCA-regulated firms

FP&A in financial services involves additional complexity — regulatory capital reporting, stress testing, ICAAP financial projections and the specific management information requirements of FCA-regulated businesses. FD Capital’s FCA regulated firms practice provides FP&A professionals who understand this environment and can produce the financial planning output that regulated firms require.

Permanent FP&A Salary Guide UK 2026

Bonus structures vary significantly — PE-backed businesses and financial services firms typically include performance bonuses of 15–30% of base at manager level and above. Planning platform expertise (Anaplan, Adaptive) commands a 10–20% salary premium over Excel-only candidates at equivalent experience levels.

Related FP&A and Senior Finance Recruitment

Businesses recruiting permanent FP&A professionals may also be interested in: Fractional FP&A Recruitment | Part-Time FP&A Recruitment | Interim FP&A Recruitment | FP&A Manager Recruitment | Head of FP&A Recruitment | Finance Business Partner Recruitment | Management Accountant Recruitment | Head of Finance Recruitment | Fractional CFO