FinOps Lead / Manager in Stoke-on-Trent

This is a greenfield leadership opportunity for an experienced FinOps professional to establish and lead the Cloud Financial Management (FinOps) function from the ground up. As the organisation accelerates its cloud-first strategy on Azure, the FinOps Lead / Manager will be the founding architect of the discipline — building the processes, governance frameworks and culture of financial accountability that will underpin sustainable cloud adoption.

The role sits firmly within the Technology division and reports into Technology leadership. It is not a Finance function. Initially this is a hands-on individual contributor role; the FinOps Lead / Manager acts as the bridge between engineering teams and financial outcomes, translating cloud consumption into business value and ensuring spend decisions are informed, intentional and owned by the right people.

Key Responsibilities

• Establishing the Function
  • Design and stand up the FinOps operating model, defining ways of working, governance cadence and the foundations for future team growth.
  • Define and implement FinOps policies, standards and tooling across the organisation — initially as a hands-on individual contributor while establishing the division.
  • Align the function to the FinOps Foundation framework, driving capability maturity from Crawl to Run.
• Cloud Financial Governance
  • Own cloud spend visibility across Azure environments, providing accurate, timely and actionable reporting.
  • Establish and enforce tagging strategies, resource governance and cost allocation frameworks.
  • Implement and manage Azure Policy controls to ensure compliance and cost discipline at scale.
  • Lead anomaly detection processes, enabling rapid identification and response to unexpected spend.
• Optimisation & Strategy
  • Drive a continuous optimisation programme covering right-sizing, reserved instances, savings plans and decommissioning.
  • Develop and maintain cloud financial forecasting models that feed into technology and organisational planning cycles.
  • Identify and quantify cost-saving opportunities, presenting recommendations to senior Technology and Business stakeholders.
  • Build and manage FinOps tooling to improve cost visibility, showback and chargeback capabilities.
• Stakeholder Leadership
  • Act as the senior FinOps authority, partnering with Engineering, Product and Architecture teams to embed cost-conscious design.
  • Engage Finance teams as a key stakeholder — providing data and forecasts — without being operationally accountable to them.
  • Present cloud financial performance at leadership and governance forums, translating technical metrics into business language.
  • Champion a culture of financial accountability across all engineering and technology disciplines.
• Education & Enablement
  • Define and deliver a FinOps training and awareness programme for development and operations teams.
  • Establish communities of practice and shared tooling to scale FinOps knowledge across the organisation.
  • Produce clear reporting packs, dashboards and documentation on cloud financial performance.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Significant experience in FinOps, Cloud Financial Management.
• Demonstrable experience leading or building a FinOps function — not just operating within one.
• Deep expertise in Azure cost management, governance tooling and Azure Policy.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence at senior and executive level.
• Experience developing forecasting models and presenting financial data to non-technical audiences.
• Proven track record of delivering measurable cloud cost savings at organisational scale.

Desirable

• FinOps Certified Practitioner (FinOps Foundation) or equivalent certification.
• Azure certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) and/or Power BI credentials.
• Exposure to AWS or multi-cloud environments.
• Experience in regulated sectors (e.g. healthcare, financial services).
• Familiarity with relevant regulatory frameworks including CQC, GDPR, NMC, GPhC and ICO.
• Experience with collaborative working across insourced/outsourced and geographically dispersed teams.

What Good Looks Like

In the first 12 months, the right candidate will have likely established a functioning FinOps practice with clear processes, tooling and reporting in place. Delivered measurable, documented cost optimisation outcomes. Created a cloud financial governance framework adopted across Technology. Built trusted relationships with engineering leads, the CTO and Finance stakeholders. Introduced a FinOps maturity roadmap with clear milestones through to a 'Run' state.

For immediate consideration please apply now.