A senior finance leadership role with genuine breadth, profile and influence.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced local government finance leader to take on a pivotal maternity cover post supporting a major Residents and Housing portfolio. Sitting at the heart of a high-demand, high-visibility service area, this role offers the chance to lead across some of the most important and financially sensitive parts of a council’s operation.

You will be the senior finance lead for the Housing General Fund, the HRA, and the wider Resident Experience portfolio, with a particularly important focus on Temporary Accommodation, homelessness-related pressures, housing operations and customer-facing services.

This is not a role for someone who wants to sit in the background. You will work closely with senior directors, members and heads of service, providing clear strategic advice, robust challenge and high-quality insight across a complex and fast-moving agenda. You will need to be comfortable operating at senior level, influencing decisions, shaping financial strategy and helping services respond to significant demand and cost pressures.

Alongside leading all aspects of financial and management accounting across the portfolio, you will play a key role in forecasting, long-term planning, financial control and sustainability. You will also support a range of improvement and transformation activity linked to housing supply, homelessness reduction, stock investment, building safety, service modernisation and improved resident experience.

This role would suit a technically strong, commercially aware and politically astute finance professional who can combine strategic thinking with practical delivery. You will need the confidence to challenge constructively, build trusted relationships quickly and provide calm, credible leadership across a demanding service environment.

You will also contribute to the wider leadership of the finance function and will need to be capable of deputising for the statutory Chief Finance Officer when required.

The role will involve:

* Leading strategic finance support across Residents & Housing Services

* Overseeing the Housing General Fund and HRA

* Providing financial leadership on Temporary Accommodation and homelessness pressures

* Delivering strong budgeting, forecasting and medium-term financial planning

* Strengthening financial control, governance and compliance

* Supporting major transformation and improvement activity

* Partnering with senior stakeholders across housing, resident services and corporate finance

* Providing insight, challenge and solutions across high-risk and high-profile service areas

About you:

* CCAB qualified, ideally CIPFA

* Strong local government finance experience

* Credible at senior level, with excellent stakeholder management skills

* Able to combine technical strength with commercial judgement

* Comfortable working across complex, politically sensitive service environments

* Experienced in driving improvement, supporting transformation and influencing better financial performance

* Proactive, detail-conscious and solutions-focused in style

This is an excellent opportunity to step into a visible and important leadership role where you can add real value from day one