Energy Bureau Lead: Data, Billing & Controls in Reading

Protect spend. Strengthen controls. Turn data into confident decisions. As the Energy Bureau Manager, you’ll lead the function that keeps MBNL financially protected, operationally assured, and insight‑driven when it comes to energy. This role is about accuracy, governance, and commercial challenge. Ensuring all billing and data flowing through the bureau is correct, controlled, and translated into meaningful action for the business.

If you’re motivated by complex data, tight controls, and turning ambiguity into clarity, this role offers real influence at the heart of MBNL’s financial and operational performance.

Why this role matters

Energy is one of the largest cost centres at MBNL (c£200m pa). Strong bureau operations underpin the ability to understand, control and influence the costs, risks and opportunities created from energy consumption. In this role, you’ll act as a custodian of energy data, ensure robust cost control and provide reliable foundations for financial and sustainability reporting and in doing so look to shape a smarter, more automated bureau model for the future.

This is a hybrid role requiring at least 2 days per week in the office - either both in Reading or one in Reading and one in London.

What you’ll be here to do:

• You’ll lead the end‑to‑end energy bureau service, ensuring data integrity, billing assurance, and actionable insight across the entire estate.
• Own energy billing assurance - validating high‑volume invoices, challenging suppliers, resolving complex disputes, and protecting MBNL from financial exposure.
• Strengthen the control environment - defining governance, reconciliations, audit readiness, and clear ownership across internal teams and outsourced partners.
• Manage the outsourced bureau supplier - driving performance through KPIs, SLAs, and structured governance forums.
• Deliver trusted reporting - providing accurate, timely insight on energy cost and consumption to support budgeting, forecasting, accruals, and variance analysis.
• Identify cost‑reduction opportunities - improving data quality, optimising tariffs, analysing consumption patterns, and building business cases for value creation.
• Shape the future operating model - influencing systems, automation, supplier strategy, and the balance between in‑house and outsourced delivery.
• Act as the senior SME - providing expert guidance on energy data, billing, controls, to the energy, sustainability and finance stakeholders.
• Lead and coach the team - modelling MBNL behaviours and driving continuous improvement across the bureau function.

Who we’re looking for:

You’re someone who thrives in data‑rich, control‑heavy environments and takes ownership of accuracy, governance, and commercial outcomes. You’ll bring:

• Experience managing high‑volume operational processes, ideally in an energy bureau, utilities, shared services, or AP/OTC environment.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with confidence challenging suppliers and interpreting complex billing data.
• A proven track record in controls, governance, and risk management, with the ability to design and improve end‑to‑end processes.
• Excellent stakeholder management and comfortable influencing senior teams.

If you also have the following, we’d especially like to hear from you:

• Understanding of UK energy markets and industry arrangements.
• Experience in utilities billing assurance, bureau operations, or similar control functions.
• Familiarity with reconciliations, accruals, month‑end processes, dashboards, or automation.
• Knowledge of SECR, ESOS, or Net Zero reporting frameworks.

If you care about getting the numbers right, strengthening controls, and turning complex data into confident decisions, we’d love to hear from you.