Lead Finance Business Partner - Workplace

Job Type: Permanent

Location: This role could be based in our Edinburgh, Birmingham or London office with time spent working in the office and at home.

Flexible working: All of our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process.

Closing Date: 16th January (23:55)

Salary and benefits: Up to £70,000 depending on experience plus an indicative bonus range 16% - 32%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Who are we? We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked. We’re Phoenix Group, we’re a long‑term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market‑leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We’re a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we’re not done yet.

We have a Lead Finance Business Partner opportunity to join our Pensions & Savings and Operations – Commercial & Finance team, supporting our Workplace and Retail Intermediated business. We’re looking for a dynamic finance professional to join our Pension & Savings division – one of the fastest‑growing areas within the Group.

Reporting to the Head of Finance Business Partnering (for Workplace and Retail Intermediated) you will play a crucial role in delivering meaningful financial support and insights across a range of financial metrics to support and enable effective business decisions. You will work closely with a range of stakeholders across the business and across finance to ensure collaboration and successful partnership.

If you’re passionate about influencing investment decisions, leading value‑adding initiatives, and partnering with senior stakeholders to optimise outcomes and challenge targets and performance, this is your opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

You will provide strategic, insightful and concise commercial analysis, leading the financial aspects of understanding business activity, and proactively challenge business performance targets, helping stakeholders understand performance drivers and commercial levers.

The role will report to the Head of Finance Business Partnering (Workplace and Retail Intermediated) and will be responsible for forward management, planning and reporting of trading performance for a number of areas within the fast‑growing Pension & Savings business, which is at the forefront of the growth ambitions for the Group.

Core responsibilities:

• Provide challenge in business performance plans and outcomes to maximise commercial value.
• Play a proactive role in the development of financial forecasting and planning, ensuring consistency with business activity and delivery.
• Explain trading results to stakeholders in a meaningful way that influences decisions and actions.
• Identify options and opportunities for financial performance management through analysis and present findings appropriately.
• Take accountability to drive forward value.
• Deliver ad‑hoc commercial analysis, identifying key trends and making recommendations.
• Support the creation of business cases that improve strategic value and align with ongoing strategy, forecasting and planning.
• Effectively communicate complex information to a wide group of stakeholders in a continuous regulatory and business change context.
• Be a self‑starter looking for ways to optimise outputs and ensure efficient and best‑practice delivery.
• Be a trusted voice across business and finance.
• Take ownership for commercial assessments and feed into investment decisions, ensuring all financial impacts are understood.
• Represent the team across internal and external working groups/management committees, sharing knowledge and influencing stakeholders to meet requirements.

What are we looking for?

Essential:

• A strong understanding of pensions and savings products, awareness of the competitive landscape and wider markets.
• A naturally curious mindset and willingness to engage in initiatives, problem solving and optimisation.
• Analytical thinking skills and the ability to communicate complex information to diverse audiences.
• Ability to identify key priorities and seek guidance when needed in a fast‑changing environment.
• Proven experience in stakeholder management, including effective business partnering for an open trading business.
• Influencing at various levels.
• Provide challenge on financial performance and expense management, navigating sensitive decisions.
• Must have an accounting qualification.

Desirable:

• Positively contribute to fostering a culture of accountability, professional growth, and collaboration.
• Proactively look for efficient ways of working, improve processes and strengthen controls while maintaining high‑quality delivery.

We want to hire the whole version of you. We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

We’re reviewing applications as they come in, so apply early to avoid missing out.

Hiring over the festive period: Many of our colleagues will be taking a well‑earned break over the festive period. We’re still advertising our open roles and as part of our commitment to providing the best candidate experience, we wanted to let you know that there may be a delay in responding to applications received between the 19th December and 5th January. Please bear with us and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.