Senior Accountant

Senior Accountant

Advert Reference Number: 1214

Job Location: Milton Keynes

Department: Finance & Business Services

Salary: £59,966 to £67,468

Closing Date: 2 December 2025

Weekly Working Hours: 37

Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract

Fixed Term Contract: End Date:

Welsh Language: Not Applicable

Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK's largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).

About the Role

The main purpose of this role is to ensure appropriate levels of control over the activities of the Treasury and Financial Operations team whilst leading the delivery of improvements that will increase the efficiency of the team. The teams' responsibilities include accounts payable, cashflow management, income, investments and management of some finance systems, including the University's loan platform (PanCredit).

Key Responsibilities

• Manage, support and develop the four team leaders in the Treasury and Financial Operations team.
• Provide assurance and oversight on all transactional activity performed by the team.
• Lead identification and delivery of system, process and financial improvements across the area.
• Plan and manage the delivery pipeline for PanCredit, including defining enhancements for development by the vendor and then supporting testing.
• Provide leadership and support to strategically important areas of activity that will impact the team. Determining impacts, co-ordinate the response, collating requirements and ensure the optimum outcome.
• Oversee the Treasury activity providing short to medium term direction to optimise the financial benefit.
• Manage the cashflow process from forecast to financial statement. and the stages in the middle.
• Support the Deputy Director of Finance with activity required for the Investment Committee.
• Provide expert accounting and controls advice across the University.
• Undertake other duties as may be allocated from time to time, including providing cover in other areas within the Division if required.

About You

Essential:

• Professionally qualified accountant.
• Committed to equality and diversity.
• Inquisitive nature and a can-do attitude.
• Excellent team leadership and people development skills.
• Experience of managing and optimising cashflow, including forecasting and reporting.
• Excellent time management able to prioritise your own work and that of others.
• Strong month end and year end experience across a range of finance areas.
• Excellent understanding of accounting IT programmes and finance systems including
• Excellent communication skills.

Desirable:

• SAP S4/HANA experience.
• Expert Excel user.
• Experience of systems development and implementation, including writing requirements and liaising with multiple stakeholders to deliver the best outcome.
• Recent transactional accounting experience demonstrating professional qualification level skills and knowledge.
• Experience of working in financial services.
• Strong negotiation skills and experience.
• Degree in a STEM subject.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on or email quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it's a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

Please note: This is a hybrid role, however during your initial induction period, attendance on site in Milton Keynes will be required 5 days per week. Following this attendance will be required on site in Milton Keynes on average 3 to 4 days per week. However we do ask for flexibility in response to business needs.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

Shortlisting will commence on 4 December 2025

Early closing date notification

We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following document(s):

• CV
• Supporting statement of no more than 1000 words, outlining how you meet the essential criteria for this role.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.