Senior Finance Business Partner – Direct Costs

Location: 4 Park Drive, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Hybrid working with in-person collaboration three days a week or more. The Milton Park office is expected to relocate to Oxford city centre in late 2027 or early 2028.

Salary: Not specified

Company

Informa and Taylor & Francis operate in academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge, and events, producing scholarly journals, books, e-books, and reference works.

What you will do

• Partner with leaders across editorial operations, marketing, production, manufacturing, inventory, and supply chain.
• Own financial planning, forecasting, reporting, budgeting, and cost control for key direct cost centres.
• Develop KPIs covering marketing ROI, production efficiency, manufacturing cost per unit, inventory turnover, and supply chain performance.
• Evaluate investments in journal launches, editorial initiatives, marketing campaigns, capital expenditure, process improvements, and technology.
• Analyse supplier performance, vendor contracts, and cost structures with Procurement.
• Identify cost reduction and process improvement opportunities, including the transition from print to digital publishing.

Requirements

• Professional accounting qualification such as ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or equivalent.
• Progressive finance experience including business partnering or FP&A experience, ideally in a matrix organisation.
• Experience managing complex cost structures and marketing budgets, conducting ROI analysis, and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including financial modelling, scenario analysis, and complex formulas.
• Working knowledge of ERP systems such as SAP or Oracle and business intelligence tools such as Power BI or Tableau.
• Knowledge of accrual accounting, cost accounting, standard costing, variance analysis, and cost allocation.

Nice to have

• Understanding of publishing economics and editorial, marketing, and production cost structures.
• Knowledge of manufacturing and supply chain financial management.
• Familiarity with royalty accounting and inventory management.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible hybrid working culture focused on work-life balance and wellbeing.
• 25 days of annual leave plus a birthday day off and three additional discretionary holiday-season days.
• Four paid volunteering days per year.
• Company-funded private medical insurance, employee assistance, life assurance, optical and medical care.
• Share Match plan and pension scheme.