Finance Leader

Laing O'Rourke; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Laing O'Rourke is seeking a Senior Finance Professional to join their Leadership team. This role involves providing financial stewardship and insight into significant social and civil infrastructure projects across the UK.

The successful candidate will possess strong analytical skills and be a certified accountant, influencing stakeholders and managing finances effectively. This is a unique opportunity to play a vital part in shaping successful construction projects through financial insight.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to influence and advise senior stakeholders.
• Competent in managing deadlines and delivering under pressure.
• Strong inquisitive nature with commercial acumen.

Responsibilities

• Advise Portfolio leadership on financial performance.
• Build relationships to identify emerging risks.
• Deliver timely finance reporting.

Skills

Financial stewardship

Relationship building

Insightful analysis

Risk management

Forecasting

Education

Professionally qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent)

Tools

COINs

Tagetik

Power BI

Job description

About Laing O'Rourke

Laing O'Rourke is an international engineering and construction company delivering state‑of‑the‑art infrastructure and building projects across the UK, Middle East and Australia.

Are you a commercially astute senior finance professional looking to be an integral part of a Senior Leadership team?

Do you want to work on some of the UK's most significant social and civil infrastructure projects in healthcare, energy, science and research, and defence?

Do you want to join an organisation that is at the forefront of innovation and MMC?

Are you ready to move into a significant partnering role and form part of a dynamic and collaborative Leadership team?

In this high‑impact role, you will work with the Finance Leader – Delivery and Nuclear, Portfolio Senior Leadership and Project Leadership teams to ensure strong financial performance across projects, driving value, managing risks and unlocking opportunities. You'll play a vital part in supporting the financial integrity through accurate reporting, insightful analysis and strategic input.

Key Responsibilities

• Being a trusted adviser to Portfolio leadership, providing rigour, clarity and financial stewardship to deliver sustainable growth and operational excellence.
• Build relationships across project teams to understand financial performance and help identify emerging risks and opportunities.
• Provide timely and high‑quality completion of core monthly finance reporting.
• Deliver meaningful insight and analysis for use in reviews, profit enhancement sessions and planning cycles.
• Drive strong cash outcomes across the portfolio by influencing commercial strategies, payment mechanisms and client behaviours, ensuring alignment with cash targets.
• Support internal and external audits by aligning project outcomes with financial standards.
• Contribute to wider finance initiatives and ad‑hoc business needs.
• Embrace digital finance transformation, automation and analytics.
• Own the integrity and accuracy of portfolio forecasts, driving early identification and escalation of risks and mitigating actions.
• Provide financial governance over variations, compensation events, claims and disputes, ensuring all matters are escalated to appropriate stakeholders.
• Drive portfolio‑level performance management, identifying themes, systemic risks and best practice and partnering with Delivery Directors to intervene where performance deviates from plan.
• Provide leadership at key bid, tender and project gateway stages, ensuring risks, assumptions and margins are well understood and reflected.
• Raise capability across delivery teams, enabling non‑finance leaders to make informed, value‑based conclusions.

About You

• Professionally qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent).
• Proven ability to influence and advise senior stakeholders.
• Competent in managing deadlines, balancing priorities and delivering under pressure.
• Curious, with a strong inquisitive nature, commercial acumen and a track record in forecasting, budgeting and reporting.
• Demonstrated experience improving processes and adding value in a finance role.

Desirable

• Experience of large, complex engineering or construction contracts.
• Familiarity with COINs, Tagetik and Power BI.
• Background in a large, complex finance organisation.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to shape how financial insight enables success on some of the UK's most significant construction projects. Join a collaborative and forward‑thinking team where your expertise makes a real difference.

Accessibility

We want to ensure our recruitment process is accessible to all. If you need the application form in an alternative format or you would like to know more about our recruitment process, please email [e-mail].