Senior Financial Statement Analyst in London

Senior Financial Statement Analyst | London, UK | Competitive Pay | Start Date: ASAP

Are you an analytically minded finance professional with a strong understanding of company filings and financial reporting?

We are looking for a

Senior Financial Statement Analyst to act as a qualitative sparring partner within a global quantitative financial-analysis environment.

This is an opportunity to apply your knowledge of financial statements, accounting principles and industry-specific KPIs to ensure financial analysis remains accurate, consistent and comparable across companies, industries and jurisdictions.

The Senior Financial Statement Analyst Role

As Senior Financial Statement Analyst, you will review company filings in detail — including primary statements and notes — to validate and improve the KPI definitions used across a global financial-analysis database.

You will work with financial information prepared under different reporting frameworks, including

US GAAP and IFRS , applying qualitative judgement to ensure that analysis remains accurate and comparable across industries and jurisdictions.

A key part of the role will involve translating complex accounting and financial-reporting logic into clear definitions and formulas that can be implemented within a customised system and automated at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Validating existing KPI definitions against real company filings and identifying precisely where a definition holds or breaks for a particular industry or company.
• Reading company filings end to end, including MD&A, segment notes, contingencies, related-party disclosures and subsequent events — not just the primary statements.
• Reconstructing non-GAAP reconciliations against the underlying GAAP figures and flagging where management adjustments are no longer reasonable.
• Understanding and working within existing KPI definitions across industries, including measures such as Rev PAR, ARPU/churn, combined ratio, EBITDAR coverage and same-store sales.
• Identifying where KPI definitions drift from industry norms or a specific filing.
• Translating KPI definitions for technical teams, communicating the underlying accounting logic precisely enough for implementation as the correct formula within a customised standard system.
• Assessing cross-industry comparability, accounting for factors such as capital intensity, lease treatment under ASC 842 and IFRS 16, and revenue-recognition timing.
• Tracing footnote-level detail, including goodwill impairment testing, off-balance-sheet arrangements and pension assumptions, through to the numbers that matter.
• Writing findings clearly enough for non-specialists to understand and act upon.
• Maintaining the same qualitative rigour when analytical frameworks are applied quantitatively across large numbers of companies.
• Performing the role in compliance with the organisation's quality and security objectives, policies and procedures.

About You

We are looking for someone with at least two years of experience in areas such as equity research, credit analysis, forensic accounting or audit, with sustained hands-on experience reviewing company filings.

You will have a general working understanding of accounting principles and financial-reporting frameworks used worldwide and be able to read and reason about filings regardless of the standards under which they have been prepared.

You will also have

• Proven experience of reading company filings at notes level and the ability to identify a specific disclosure that has changed an analytical conclusion.
• The ability to build a KPI from source data and defend the definition line by line.
• An understanding of industry-specific KPI conventions and when a cross-industry comparison is valid.
• Sharp, evidence-based analytical judgement and the confidence to make a defensible analytical call rather than simply relying on a vendor number.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain what a number says, what the notes do not say and why it matters to a non-specialist.
• A rigorous and consistent approach to applying qualitative judgement at scale.
• Working fluency in English and comfort working with filings from non-English-speaking jurisdictions.

Desirable Experience

• A CFA, CPA or equivalent professional qualification.
• Experience reviewing filings across multiple jurisdictions, including the US, EU, UK and APAC.
• Sector specialism, such as insurance, REITs or banking, alongside broader general coverage.
• Deep fluency in US GAAP and IFRS, including areas where they diverge, such as leases, revenue recognition and impairment.
• Experience feeding or auditing an automated financial-data pipeline and understanding where automated extraction can break down.
• Experience reconstructing non-GAAP reconciliations.
• The confidence to constructively challenge existing definitions, with a genuine sparring-partner mindset.

What We're Looking For

This role would suit someone who enjoys getting beneath the surface of financial statements and is comfortable questioning assumptions, analysing disclosures and making evidence-based judgements.

You will combine strong technical and analytical skills with the ability to communicate complex financial concepts clearly.

Most importantly, you will be comfortable acting as a constructive challenger — ensuring that financial data and KPI definitions are not simply accepted at face value, but are properly tested against the underlying reality of company reporting.

If you have a strong background in financial statement analysis and enjoy applying detailed qualitative judgement to complex financial data, we'd love to hear from you.