Cost Controller in Worthing

Location: Durrington, Worthing

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: 37

Salary: From £45k depending on skills and experience

About the role: The Cost Controller is responsible for the end-to-end financial control of the Smart Metering Programme, ensuring accurate forecasting, reporting and governance across Opex and Capex.

What you will be responsible for:

• Maintain a single source of financial truth, reporting consistently and on time at all levels.
• Capture and manage all Opex and Capex spend at a detailed level.
• Provide end-to-end financial management, including tracking, reporting and analysis; purchase order and invoice processing; and finance system updates.
• Coach workstream leads on forecasting and profiling spend.
• Identify and report budget risks and opportunities, with clear actions and mitigations.
• Month-end / period close alignment: ownership of timetable, cut-off, accruals/prepayments, and reconciliation steps.
• Capex governance & accounting compliance: ensuring correct treatment of Capex vs Opex, retaining evidence, and meeting policy approvals.
• Maintain an audit trail of budget approvals and subsequent changes.
• Change control impact on budget: formal linkage between scope change requests and budget movements.
• Vendor/contractor cost control: checking invoices against contract/SOW/milestones, rate cards, timesheets, and ensuring correct cost coding.

What you'll bring to the role:

• Significant experience in a project finance, management accounting, or finance coordinator role, supporting programmes/projects.
• Proven experience managing detailed Opex/Capex budgets, including actuals, forecast and variance analysis.
• Hands-on experience with purchase order and invoice processing, cost coding and resolving exceptions.
• Experience working to month-end timelines and maintaining a clear audit trail of budget changes.
• Strong Excel skills and experience maintaining data quality across financial trackers.
• Experience using finance systems and project cost structures; experience updating Capex systems is desirable.
• Experience partnering with Finance Business Partners and coaching non-finance stakeholders to improve forecast accuracy.
• Experience in a regulated or highly governed environment is desirable.

Southern Water is at the forefront of transforming Britain's water industry, investing significantly to enhance resilience, sustainability, and service excellence. With £7.8bn planned investment for 2025-30, this is an unparalleled opportunity to join a business committed to delivering a generational shift in the way water services are managed.

We offer an environment where senior professionals can make a meaningful impact, influence major strategic decisions, and drive long-term value creation. At Southern Water, we believe diverse perspectives drive innovation. If you're passionate about making a positive impact and think you can bring value to our team, we'd love to hear from you—even if you don't tick every box. Your unique skills and experiences could be exactly what we need.

If this role isn't quite what you're looking for but are keen to be contacted about opportunities at Southern Water, you can register your details here.

Our Commitment to Diversity: We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other protected characteristic. If you need reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.

Additional information: In line with Southern Water's security requirements, successful candidates will be required to provide evidence of their identity, eligibility to work in the UK, criminal record check (DBS) and verification of their employment and/or education history for the past three years. Appointment to this role is subject to the successful completion of all pre-employment checks, including security vetting.