Chief Operating Officer jobs in United Kingdom

At Grant Thornton we do things differently - looking to the future, driving ambitious growth and pioneering positive change in our industry. Providing audit, tax and advisory services, we empower clients through strategic insight, curiosity, and genuine partnership. And we empower our people with real opportunity, an inclusive culture and work life balance. A true alternative.

With over 5,000 people in the UK, and a presence in 150 global markets, we’re on an ambitious journey, from great to exceptional, and we need the best people to help us achieve our potential. And with that comes the opportunity to help redefine what our industry looks like, and what you want from your career.

Every day our teams help people in businesses and communities to do what is right and achieve their goals. You will be part of the outsourcing function of our CFO Solutions team.

The outsourcing team serves as an extension of our clients’ finance team, supporting them in meeting their bookkeeping and compliance needs. We ensure that our clients reporting is timely and accurate and therefore forms a sound basis for clients to fulfil their tax and reporting obligations with consequent benefits for society.

• Shape strategic direction by partnering with the leadership team to deeply understand business priorities, operating models, and growth objectives.
• Drive business growth through proactive origination and conversion of high-value opportunities, including developing outsourcing propositions, leading proposal strategies, and representing the firm at key external and internal forums.
• Build and leverage senior networks across the wider firm to unlock cross-service opportunities and in the external market.
• Establish and nurture executive-level relationships with corporates across a number of sectors to generate sustainable revenue streams.
• Own key account strategies, ensuring growth plans are implemented and monitored for impact across priority clients and targets.
• Oversee market engagement campaigns, working with origination teams to design outreach strategies and ensure timely, high-quality follow-up in core and emerging sub-sectors.
• Act as a market ambassador, representing the firm at client, intermediary, and industry events, and ensuring post-event actions translate into tangible business opportunities.
• Management responsibilities – responsibility for managing the team and ensuring correct levels of capability and capacity are maintained for client requirements. There is potential overseas travel involved in this, to develop our relationship with our GT India colleagues.
• Shape thought leadership and sector positioning, generating ideas for market-leading insights, and ensuring marketing campaigns deliver ROI and reinforce brand authority.
• Direct pipeline development, maintaining a robust order book and ensuring accurate forecasting aligned to growth targets.
• Ensure best-in-class client materials, overseeing the creation and refresh of sector credentials, pitch templates, and case studies to support business development.
• Champion digital and social presence, driving impactful sector-related content and engagement across relevant platforms.
• Foster a culture of collaboration and innovation, sharing insights, best practices, and market intelligence across the BD, Markets & Clients community to maximise firmwide opportunities.

Joining us as an Associate Director within our Business Process Outsourcing team, the minimum criteria you’ll need is:

• Experience of successful sales and business development to support the growth of a business. Prior experience of sales of business process outsourcing solutions would be added advantage.
• Excellent communication to manage both client & delivery team relationships. Our operating model involves working with global and cross-cultural teams. Having flexibility to travel to other offices (both within and outside UK) is must.
• Strong commercial awareness and the ability to engage with and influence key decision makers at a senior level, to identify new business opportunities with both new prospects and existing clients
• Good organisational and IT (technology + CRM tools like Dynamics) skills
• A proactive, can-do attitude

• A professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, ICAS, CA or CIPFA)
• Outsourcing delivery experience

Embracing uniqueness, the culture at Grant Thornton thrives on the contributions of all our people, we never settle for what is easy, we look beyond to deliver the right thing, for everyone. Building an inclusive culture, where we value difference and respect our colleagues helps our people to perform at the best of their ability and realise their potential.

Our open and accessible culture means you’ll interact with leaders who are interested in you and everything you bring to our firm. The things that set you apart, we value them. That’s why we give you the freedom to bring your whole self to work and pursue your passions inside and outside of work.

Life is more than work. The things you do, and the people you’re with outside of work matter, that’s why we’re happy to look at flexible working options for all our roles, and we’ll always do our best to keep your work and life in balance.

The impact you can make here will go far beyond your day job. From secondments, to fundraising for local charities, or investing in entrepreneurs in the developing world, you’ll be giving back to society. It’s that drive to do the right thing that runs through our every move, grounded in our firm’s values – purposefully driven, actively curious and candid but kind.

We’re looking for people who want to contribute, spark fresh ideas and go beyond expectations. People who want to be able to proudly do what’s right, for the firm, our clients, our people and themselves. It’s how it should be.