Chief Finance Officer

NHS; Kettering; On-site; GBP 166,000 - 198,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare organization is seeking a Chief Finance Officer to lead financial strategy and ensure value for money against healthcare budgets. The CFO will be responsible for guiding financial management and developing sustainable healthcare initiatives. Ideal candidates should possess substantial board-level experience in healthcare, strong communication skills, and a proven track record of financial leadership. This is a full-time, permanent position based in Kettering.

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant with full membership of relevant professional body.
• Extensive knowledge of the health, care and local-government landscape.
• Deep understanding of healthcare value and outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Provide dynamic, visible, strategic leadership to ensure financial duties are met.
• Act as a steward of public money securing financial balance.
• Cultivate a financially sustainable provider market.

Skills

Exceptional communication and influencing skills

Strong critical thinking

Advanced data-literacy

Proven ability to lead utilisation-review programmes

Education

Doctorate level or equivalent

Qualified accountant

Formal management qualification

Job description

Job details

Job summary

The Chief Finance Officer is accountable to the Chief Executive of the NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB and Northamptonshire ICB Cluster for all aspects of the role, with professional accountability to the Regional Finance Director of NHS England.

The two ICBs in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) and Northamptonshire have come together to form a Cluster from the 1 October 2025. Following the appointment of a Cluster Chair and Chief Executive, a single Executive Team has now been created to bring together the management support functions of the two organisations. The Executive Team will be responsible for delivering the new strategic commissioning model for a combined population of c1.9 million people across LLR and Northamptonshire and a budget of c£4.7 billion.

Main duties of the job

This Chief Finance Officer will provide dynamic, visible, strategic leadership to ensure that the ICBs deliver on their statutory financial duties and demonstrate clear value for money against the allocated population-health budget to maximise improvements in health access, experience and outcomes. They will act as a steward of public money, securing financial balance and measurable return on investment in population-health outcomes. A pivotal element of the role is to cultivate a financially sustainable provider market, rapidly aligning funding to outcome-linked service specifications and oversee sophisticated cost-and-outcome analytics to assure that commissioning services maximise healthcare value.

About us

The Chief Finance Officer portfolio includes executive leadership for:

• Financial strategy and planning
• Financial management and accounting
• Procuring services to deliver against the ICBs objectives and the three shifts
• Contract management to hold providers to account for delivery
• Corporate governance
• Lead the Cluster internal finance function and team

In addition, the Chief Finance Officer will also support the Chief Executive to provide visible and consistent senior leadership to local partnership working. Each of the ICBs Chief Officers will be aligned to work with one of the five local authority Places. As well as working across the organisation to achieve the core purposes of the ICB, contribute to the ambitions of the 10 Year Plan and evolve the Cluster operating model, values and culture.

Details

Date posted: 29 October 2025

Pay scheme: Very senior manager (VSM)

Salary: £166,956 to £197,311 a year per annum

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Full-time

Reference number: 086-7580602

Job locations: Haylock House, Kettering Parkway, Kettering, NN15 6EY

Job responsibilities

The CFO will provide dynamic, visible, strategic leadership to ensure that the ICBs deliver on their statutory financial duties and demonstrate clear value for money against the allocated population-health budget to maximise improvements in health access, experience and outcomes. They will act as a steward of public money, securing financial balance and measurable return on investment in population-health outcomes. A pivotal element of the role is to cultivate a financially sustainable provider market, rapidly aligning funding to outcome-linked service specifications and oversee sophisticated cost-and-outcome analytics to assure that commissioning services maximise healthcare value. The CFO portfolio includes executive leadership for: Financial strategy and planning; Financial management and accounting; Procuring services to deliver against the ICBs objectives and the three shifts; Contract management to hold providers to account for delivery; Corporate governance. The CFO will be corporately accountable to the ICB Chief Executive and professionally accountable to the Regional Finance Director of NHS England.

Corporate executive responsibilities

As a member of the executive team and unitary board of a strategic commissioning organisation the CFO will have a shared purpose and corporate responsibility for developing and delivering the four functions of the national Model ICB. Each member of the executive team will work together to balance the need for successful delivery across the following four local transition priorities: 1. Delivering in-year plans for finance, quality and performance 2. Establishing the new model ICB and supporting staff through change 3. Developing medium term strategic commissioning plans to deliver the three shifts, with an initial focus on neighbourhood services 4. Creating the environment, conditions and relationships across the systems, places and neighbourhoods to enable partners to lead and deliver. In order to provide visible and consistent senior leadership to local partnership working, each of the Chief Officers will be aligned to work with one of the five local authority Places through Health and Wellbeing Board etc arrangements.

Role specific portfolio responsibilities

The CFO will be accountable for leading the finance function and matrix working across the organisation to achieve the core purposes of the ICB and contribute to the ambitions of the 10 Year Plan: Setting overall financial strategy for the Cluster to inform allocation of resources based on improving population outcomes; Developing the ICBs annual financial plan within allocated resources to deliver financial balance; Building the capability for a deep understanding of productivity/unit costs through bottom-up health economic analytics; Aligning funding with need and impact using actuarial models and bottom-up costing (should cost principles); Shaping the market through strategic purchasing and development of new payment mechanisms; Allocating and managing resources through outcome-based contracts; Ensuring robust and transparent arrangements across the ICBs for financial control, management, accounting and reporting; Ensure effective governance mechanisms for anticipating, identifying, mitigating and reporting on key financial risks; Manage internal financial plan delivery PMO function; Establishing and maintaining effective and proportionate frameworks for oversight of shared services, joint commissioning and delegated budgets; Managing the ICBs internal corporate governance functions, including office management and health and safety; Leading on internal and external audit, and fraud; Acting as the SIRO for the ICBs

Key working relationships

The CFO will be a highly effective communicator operating confidently and adaptably in demanding environments and take a lead in proactively engaging with all system partners and stakeholders. In particular, they will be required to develop and maintain strong and effective working relationships with the following as appropriate with the CFO role: Colleagues within the ICB Cluster executive team; Non-Executive and Partner Members of the ICB Boards; Staff across the ICB directorates; Staff in CSU / shared service and hosted functions; Commissioning partners in local government, other ICBs across the East and West Midlands, and NHS England; Providers of commissioned services in NHS trusts, primary care, independent sector, and voluntary sector organisations; Managerial and clinical leadership of place, collaborative and neighbourhood arrangements across LNR; Senior professional networks locally, regionally and nationally; External regulators (e.g. NHS England regional/national teams, CQC); Local statutory and partnership forums (e.g. Integrated Care Partnerships, Health and Wellbeing Boards, Health Scrutiny Committees); Public and patient networks and forums

Supplementary duties

Reflecting the senior executive nature of the role, the above is only an outline of the roles and responsibilities required of the role. The job holder will carry out other duties as may be reasonably required by the organisation commensurate with the level of the post. In addition, the post holder must at all times have due regard for the organisation's policies and procedures relating to: Health and safety; Data protection and confidentiality; All age safeguarding; Equality, diversity and inclusion; Information management, technology and governance; Flexible and agile working; Reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010

Qualifications and experience

Qualifications Essential

• Qualified accountant with full membership of relevant professional body
• Educated to doctorate level or equivalent level of experience working at a senior level
• Formal management qualification and/or proven leadership experience

Experience Essential

• Substantial Board-level experience leading significant organisational functions and transformational change
• Career in healthcare or an equivalently complex, regulated, consumer-facing environment
• Proven delivery of strategies that optimise resource use and achieve lasting improvement
• Experience of providing financial leadership, mentorship, and professional development at a very senior level with demonstrable outcomes

Knowledge Essential

• Extensive knowledge of the health, care and local-government landscape and of social determinants of health
• Expert understanding of strategic commissioning, oversight and control of public funds
• Sophisticated grasp of population-health management, data analytics, predictive modelling and risk stratification
• Deep understanding of healthcare value -- the relationship between outcomes achieved and resources consumed
• Comprehensive knowledge of outcomes measurement, cost-accounting methodologies and comparative-effectiveness analysis
• Expertise in value-based payment reform (e.g. bundled payments, capitation, outcomes-based contracts)
• Thorough knowledge of contracting and utilisation-review techniques and how they drive productivity and quality

Skills Essential

• Exceptional communication and influencing skills, building confidence across communities, clinicians, politicians and partners
• Strong critical thinking and strategic problem-solving, anticipating and framing complex issues
• Advanced data-literacy and analytical capability, converting insights into strategic decisions and commissioning levers
• Proven ability to design and negotiate complex contracts that link payment to outcomes and cost efficiency
• Demonstrated capability to lead utilisation-review programmes that eliminate waste and improve productivity

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website. From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants to the UK have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided in for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see the NHS Careers website.

Employer details

Employer name: NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board

Address: Haylock House, Kettering Parkway, Kettering, NN15 6EY

Employer's website: https://www.icnorthamptonshire.org.uk/icb