Finance Development Programme – Financial Management

The Finance function is inviting candidates to join the Financial Management journey of our Finance Development Programme.

Over the course of 3 years, you’ll undertake three 12-month placements, progressively building your skills, knowledge, and experience to reach an Accountant level role. This includes support to study for and obtain the CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) qualification – helping you learn and embed key management accounting practices that you can apply in your role.

We recognise the importance of learning in an office environment, these roles therefore offer a hybrid working arrangement, requiring a presence in our Swindon Head Office at least twice a week.

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

What you’ll be doing

If you’re ambitious and driven to succeed, you’ve come to the right place. You’ll have  opportunity to contribute from Day 1 and be encouraged to get involved. Attention to detail, being well organised and open to feedback with an eagerness to find solutions are key to succeeding as you work on important deliverables for the Society. Ensuring we act with our customers best interests, whilst pushing for better by seeking to improve efficiency and productivity in everything we do.

Building and maintaining strong working relationships will give you a firm foundation to tackle complex and sometimes ambiguous challenges.

Overview of your journey

Financial Management at Nationwide consists of our business partnering teams and our Financial Planning and Stress Testing (FP&ST) team, with each of your three rotations spent within these areas. We have three business partnering teams in Finance and their role is to partner with different parts of the Society to provide financial information, insight, analysis, and challenge to support income, costs, and balance sheet objectives.

The FP&ST team are responsible for producing key planning deliverables including the 5-year financial plan, cost plan and developing the relevant stress scenarios to test the Society's resilience within diverse macroeconomic and market stresses. The team also help to manage Society's in-year performance including the reporting of a balanced scorecard to the Board and meeting cost and efficiency targets.

1st year

During your first year you’ll build a foundational understanding of management accounts, paving the way to success in your following years and supporting your first years’ worth of exams. You will be in the equivalent of an assistant accountant role where you will support the creation and analysis of month-end balances and reporting. We’ll be looking for you to identify process improvements and work collaboratively across the teams to improve efficiency.

2nd year

In this pivotal year of your journey, you're positioned at the intermediate level, ready to enhance the skills you've already begun cultivating. This phase is about owning a greater share of the commentary that bolsters the management accounts, placing you in a central role where your insights matter. Expect to amplify your impact as you actively contribute more substantially to supporting business cases and reporting. It's not just about skill enhancement; it's about taking ownership and playing a more influential role in the production, analysis, and evaluation of the management accounts. You’ll also actively build and nurture relationships with stakeholders, gradually gaining ownership of these crucial connections.

3rd year

In the final year of your journey, you can expect to be in a role that is the equivalent of a senior assistant accountant, with this your chance to hone essential skills in influencing and stakeholder management and showcase the skills you’ve learnt across the Financial Management journey to propel you into life beyond the programme and your future career at Nationwide. Your scope of responsibility extends to more intricate business areas, such as the financial planning and stress testing teams, where you’ll be at the forefront of providing invaluable insights and recommendations derived from the intricacies of financial management data to stakeholders across the business.

Having contributed to key deliveries across your programme, developed skills that display your competency within Financial Management, and successfully passed your CIMA qualification, we would expect you to be well positioned to move into an Accountant equivalent role.

About you

Whether you’re a recent graduate, contemplating a career change, or are already working in finance but seeking your next challenge, our finance development programme paves the way for a fast-paced career in finance. This role is all about providing insight and support to deliver the financial outcomes of the Society, this will include month end reporting, production of financial reports, interpreting data, problem solving and working in a team, so you’ll need to have:

• Two A Level qualifications (A*-E) and three GCSE’s at grades A-C/grade 9-4 (or equivalent) including Maths and English Language.
• A high level of numeracy and IT literacy.
• The ability to use your analytical skills to come up with solutions and ideas.
• An inquisitive mind and an aptitude for problem solving.

We will also be looking for

• Great communication skills.
• The ability to plan and deliver work with attention to detail.
• Motivation to learn and develop.
• Determination and drive to make a difference.

Nationwide will support your studies with time off work for your accountancy exams and for study and revision courses run by an external study provider. To be successful you will also need to dedicate a significant amount of your own time for self-study, revision and exam practice.

The extras you’ll get

As well as a permanent contract and a competitive starting salary (£32,500pa), as a valued member of the team we offer you:  

• A personal pension – if you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top up by a further 16%
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year
• Life assurance worth 8x your salary
• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Access to an annual performance related bonus
• Access to training to help you develop and progress your career
• 25 days holiday

Why work at Nationwide?

We’re different from other financial service providers. We’re a building society, owned by our members. And for over 130 years, we’ve supported those members to make the most of their money and achieve what they want from life.   

That’s reflected in the way we work here at Nationwide. We come together to make sure we’re doing things in the best way possible, both for each other and for our members. If you join us, you’ll be part of that. You’ll be able to help us build something really quite special. And you’ll have the opportunity to make a real difference.   

On top of that, we always want you to be yourself. To use your skills and experience to make our Society stronger. To feel valued for who you are, not just what you do. Because here at Nationwide, we understand that we can do more together than we ever could alone.