Audit Manager

Debenhams-Group; Manchester; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Debenhams Group in Manchester is seeking an experienced Audit Manager to lead our external audit relationships within Group Finance. You will sit with the auditors, challenge findings, and help ensure robust, efficient audit processes across the business.

Ideal candidates have Big Four external audit experience, ACA or equivalent, and a track record auditing complex, listed organizations. You will influence across Finance, Commercial, Technology and Operations.

Qualifications

• Big Four external audit experience is required.
• ACA qualification or equivalent is required.
• Experience auditing listed/PLC businesses is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own the external audit relationship with recognised auditors.
• Embed audit readiness throughout the year, not just year-end.
• Influence across Group Finance, Commercial Finance, Technology, Operations and our brands.

Skills

Big Four experience

ACA qualification

External audit knowledge

Stakeholder management

Project management

Education

ACA or equivalent

Job description

At Debenhams Group, we are a diverse portfolio of five core brands (boohoo, boohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing, Karen Millen, and Debenhams) alongside a dynamic marketplace model and a growing financial services division, it keeps us pretty busy!

We don't stand still, we lead, evolve, and redefine online fashion. With bold ambitions and big energy, we're on a mission to be the best, delivering the strongest propositions to our customers in the most engaging, innovative, and efficient ways possible.

We thrive on change, innovation, and pace. Every challenge is an opportunity, and every day is a chance to push boundaries. If you're someone who embraces the unknown, thrives in a fast-moving, high-growth environment, and is ready to shape the future of retail, you'll love it here. We want visionaries, disruptors, and doers, people who bring fresh thinking, relentless energy, and the drive to make an impact.

Be brave. Be creative. Be a community.

THE ROLE

We're looking for an experienced Audit Manager to join our Group Finance team and take a leading role in managing our external audit relationships.

Ideally, you'll have built your career within one of the Big Four external audit firms, giving you a strong understanding of exactly how an external audit team thinks and operates: from risk and materiality through to controls, evidence, technical judgements and year-end delivery.

We want someone with the technical credibility and confidence to sit across the table from our external auditors, understand what they're asking for, and challenge where appropriate. You'll become a key link between our auditors, senior Finance leadership and the wider Group; getting ahead of issues, improving our audit readiness and making sure we run a robust, efficient and commercially sensible audit process.

In a business that moves at our pace, you'll need to be comfortable with change, confident making decisions and willing to get stuck into the detail when it matters.

This role is based at our Manchester HQ, 5 days per week.

WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING

Own the external audit relationship

• Be a key point of contact between Debenhams Group and our external auditors, helping to drive the relationship throughout the year.
• Own and coordinate the external audit timetable across Group Finance and the wider business.
• Get ahead of audit requirements, anticipating what will be needed before the requests start landing.
• Understand and challenge requests to ensure they are clear, proportionate and aligned to the agreed audit scope.
• Spot duplication, unnecessary requests and inefficient ways of working — and have the confidence to challenge them.
• Hold our external auditors accountable for agreed timelines, scope and delivery.
• Challenge findings, assumptions and conclusions where there is a strong technical or commercial basis to do so.
• Work with Finance leadership to resolve complex and judgemental audit matters quickly.
• Build a brilliant working relationship with our audit partners without being afraid to push back when it's right for the business.

Keep us audit-ready

We don't want audit readiness to start when year-end does. You'll help us embed it throughout the year.

You'll:

• Work with Finance teams to ensure key accounting judgements, balances and controls are properly documented and supported.
• Identify potential issues before they become audit findings.
• Spot recurring themes and work with teams to fix the root cause, not just answer the same question again next year.
• Review financial processes and controls and identify opportunities to strengthen them.
• Drive ownership and completion of agreed audit actions.
• Find smarter and more efficient ways for the business and our auditors to work together.
• Help create a culture where strong financial controls are simply part of how we operate.

Bring the technical expertise

You’ll:

• Apply strong accounting and audit knowledge to complex and judgemental areas.
• Understand the audit implications of significant transactions, estimates and accounting judgements.
• Work closely with senior Finance colleagues on technical accounting matters.
• Review and challenge audit positions using evidence, accounting standards and professional judgement.
• Translate complex audit requirements into straightforward, practical actions for the business.
• Keep us ahead of relevant accounting, audit, governance and regulatory developments affecting a listed PLC.

Influence across the group

You’ll work across Group Finance, Commercial Finance, Technology, Operations, Supply Chain, Digital and our wider brands and functions.

You'll:

• Build trusted relationships at all levels of the organisation.
• Work closely with senior Finance leadership throughout planning, interim and year-end audit.
• Make sure stakeholders understand what's needed, why it's needed and when it's needed.
• Surface risks early, no year-end surprises.
• Challenge senior stakeholders where actions or controls aren't moving quickly enough.
• Become an internal go-to person for external audit methodology and expectations.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We're looking for someone with proper external audit foundations who now wants the opportunity to influence things from inside the business.

Ideally, you'll bring:

• Big Four external audit experience, either currently in practice or having previously trained and qualified within a Big Four firm.
• ACA qualification or equivalent.
• Strong technical accounting and external audit knowledge.
• Experience working with large, complex organisations.
• Ideally, experience auditing listed/PLC businesses, retail, ecommerce or consumer-facing organisations.
• A strong understanding of risk, materiality, financial controls, substantive testing, audit evidence and accounting judgement.
• Experience of PLC/listed audit environments would be a real advantage.
• The technical confidence to challenge experienced auditors and senior Finance stakeholders.
• Strong commercial judgement — knowing when to challenge, when to push and when the auditors have a point.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• The ability to take something technically complex and make it simple.
• Strong organisation and project management skills — you'll be comfortable managing multiple priorities and tight deadlines.
• A proactive mindset. You don't wait for someone else to identify the problem.
• Plenty of curiosity and the confidence to ask “why?”

WHY JOIN US

We are making bold moves, delivering real results, and driving forward with unstoppable momentum. If that excites you, then you belong at Debenhams Group.

Let's lead the change together.