Head of Finance in Bristol

Location: Rosyth, Fife, Devonport, Plymouth or Bristol + Hybrid Working Arrangements

Compensation: Competitive + Benefits

Role Type: Full time / Permanent

Shape the financial future of global defence programmes.

At Babcock we’re working to create a safe and secure world, together, and if you join us, you can play your part as a Head of Finance at one of our Babcock sites.

The role:

As a Head of Finance, you’ll have a role that’s out of the ordinary. You will play a pivotal leadership role at the heart of Babcock’s expansion into the Indo‑Pacific region while maintaining strong financial governance across key UK naval programmes. This is a unique opportunity to combine strategic leadership with international reach, shaping how critical defence and engineering programmes are financed, governed and delivered.

Day‑to‑day you’ll be required to:

• Leading the end‑to‑end financial setup of Babcock’s Indonesian subsidiary, ensuring compliant legal, tax and governance structures.
• Overseeing financial control, reporting and risk management across multi‑year defence programmes.
• Developing commercial pricing models and bid support for complex international tenders.
• Managing treasury, banking and foreign exchange activities across multiple currencies.
• Partnering with senior stakeholders to ensure programmes are commercially robust, compliant and sustainable.

Please note that this position involves travel/working across a range of internal and customer sites, as a requirement of the role. This role is full time, 36 hours per week and provides hybrid working arrangements with three days onsite. You will be expected to travel to Indonesia on a quarterly basis.

Essential experience of the Head of Finance:

• Proven experience establishing or supporting international entities, including legal and tax structuring.
• Strong background in project accounting and long‑term contract management.
• Experience operating within regulated environments, such as defence, aerospace, engineering or infrastructure.
• Demonstrated ability to lead financial governance, risk and controls at senior level.
• Commercial acumen supporting bids, pricing models and strategic decision‑making.

Qualifications for the Head of Finance:

• Professionally qualified accountant: ACA, ACCA or CIMA or equivalent.
• Additional exposure to international tax, treasury or joint ventures would be advantageous.

Security Clearance:

The successful candidate must be able to achieve and maintain Security Check (SC) security clearance for this role. Many of the positions within our company are subject to national security clearance and Trade Control restrictions. This means that your eligibility for certain roles may be affected by your place of birth, nationality, current or former citizenship, and any residency you hold or have held.

What we offer:

• Generous holiday allowance.
• Matched contribution pension scheme, with life assurance.
• Access to a Digital GP, annual health check, and nutritional consultations through Aviva DigiCare+.
• Employee shopping savings portal.
• Payment of Professional Fees.
• Reservists in the armed forces receive 10-days special paid leave.
• Holiday Trading is a benefit that allows UK Babcock employees to buy additional leave or to sell up to one working week of annual leave from their annual entitlement.
• ‘Be Kind Day’ enables employees to take one working day's paid leave a year (or equivalent hours) to undertake volunteering work with their chosen organisation or registered charity.

Babcock We’re Babcock — a global FTSE 100 organisation with over 26,000 people working together to make a difference. Here, you’ll be part of something bigger. From initial design to final decommissioning, your work will contribute to products and services that are essential to national security and public infrastructure. Together, we’re building a future that lasts — not just through the impact we make, but through meaningful careers that respect your work-life balance. We call that lifetime engineering. Join us and see how far we can go, together.

We are a disability confident committed employer. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please email careers@babcockinternational.com with the subject header ‘Reasonable adjustments requirement’. We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone’s free to thrive. We are happy to talk about flexible working – please ask about alternative patterns of work at interview.

Closing date: 14/05/2026