Head of Financial Control - Management Accounting 6 Month Fixed Term Contract

About us

At Trainline, our purpose is to empower greener travel choices, connecting people and places. Trainline enables millions of travellers to find and book the best value tickets across carriers, fares, and journey options through our highly rated mobile app, website, and B2B partner channels. 

Great journeys start with Trainline 🚄 

We’re Europe’s leading independent rail platform, helping millions of travellers find and book the best-value rail and coach journeys across our app, website and partner channels.

Our job is to make the green travel choice the best choice. By building a better train travel experience, we help more people choose rail - creating a positive impact for customers, our business and the planet.

We’re a team of more than 1,000 Trainliners from over 50 nationalities, working across London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Edinburgh and Madrid. Now is a brilliant time to join us and help shape the future of travel.

Introducing the Trainline Financial Control Team 👋

Trainline is Europe's leading independent rail platform, helping millions of travellers find and book the best value rail and coach journeys across our app, website and partner channels. Our Financial Control team sits at the heart of how we understand and run the business, owning the quality and integrity of our management accounts, balance sheet and month end processes. As Head of Management Accounts, you'll lead a team through two Senior Finance Managers, covering the P&L from Revenue to Adjusted EBITDA (one above Gross Margin, one below), acting as the go-to expert for complex accounting judgement and the person who joins the dots across Financial Control, FP&A and the wider business.

You'll scale through your team rather than through the detail, empowering them to own the underlying processes end to end while you remain accountable for outcomes and standards, acting as the escalation point for judgement calls and the driver of improvement and projects. Beyond Financial Control, you'll be a natural point of contact for cross-functional work, partnering with teams including Legal, Commercial, Product and Technology to translate complex or ambiguous problems into a clear, well documented plan. Reporting into the Group Financial Controller, you'll build broad enough knowledge across external reporting, governance, working capital and FP&A to deputise when needed, and you'll represent Financial Control with authority across the business.

In this role as the Head of Management Accounts, you will...🚄

• Lead the team within Financial Control, principally through two direct reports, acting as a role model who coaches and mentors to build capability, delegates effectively, holds the team to a high standard of delivery and keeps development and succession front of mind

• Act as a thought leader within the team, bringing structure and clarity to complex or ambiguous problems and documenting conclusions so they can be applied consistently across the function

• Lead cross-functional projects from beginning to end, working with teams including Legal, Commercial, Product and Technology, setting and holding a timeline and navigating senior stakeholder relationships to land a single, well-documented position

• Hold accountability for the smooth, timely running of month end, including balance sheet integrity, key reconciliations and working capital analysis, with the team owning execution and you providing judgement and sign off, critically reviewing management accounts output for risks, inconsistencies and control gaps and ensuring a consistently high-quality, on-time, audit-ready close

• Act as the subject matter expert for external reporting and controls, providing technical challenge on Annual Report and Half-Year Report verification activity, owning accounting policy judgements and their documentation, and liaising with external auditors on balance sheet and reporting matters as needed

• Be accountable for a strong internal control environment, and drive continuous improvement and automation to reduce manual effort and improve the quality of outputs

• Hold the team accountable for effective Order-to-Cash processes across the group, maintaining strong control and discipline, while proactively identifying emerging risks or areas of complexity

• Own the cost budgeting process in partnership with FP&A, ensuring cost centre owners work to a clear timetable, challenge assumptions and are well prepared to present to the CFO, and build a team that acts as trusted finance partners across the business, providing insight and challenge that shapes commercial decisions, stepping in personally for the most complex or senior conversations

• Maintain strong awareness of corporate governance as a listed business, provide senior oversight of working capital performance including Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, and deputise for the Group Financial Controller as required, including representing Financial Control at key forums

We'd love to hear from you if you have...🔍

• Qualified accountant status (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with significant post-qualification experience running month end, balance sheet, reconciliation and working capital processes in a complex business

• Experience managing and developing senior finance managers or teams, including setting direction and managing performance through others, with a track record of holding teams to high standards

• Strong technical knowledge of IFRS and listed-company governance, and confidence making accounting policy judgements

• A strong track record of business partnering with senior, non-finance stakeholders to shape commercial decisions

• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build trust quickly, manage upwards, delegate effectively and run a project from beginning to end

• A collaborative leadership style that empowers teams to own delivery, while you stay accountable for standards and outcomes

• Experience of ERP platforms or finance automation tools

• Experience in a listed or multi-currency business would be an advantage, though not essential

More information:

Enjoy fantastic perks like private healthcare & dental insurance, a generous work from abroad policy, 2-for-1 share purchase plans, an EV Scheme to further reduce carbon emissions, extra festive time off, and excellent family-friendly benefits. 

We prioritise career growth with clear career paths, transparent pay bands, personal learning budgets, and regular learning days. Jump on board and supercharge your career from day one! 

We're operating a hybrid model and ask that Trainliners work from the office a minimum of 60% of their time over a 12-week period. We also have a 28-day Work from Abroad policy.

Our values represent the things that matter most to us and what we live and breathe everyday, in everything we do: 

• 💭 Think Big - We're building the future of rail 

• ✔️ Own It - We focus on every customer, partner and journey 

• 🤝  Travel Together - We're one team 

• ♻️ Do Good - We make a positive impact 

We know that having a diverse team makes us better and helps us succeed. And we mean all forms of diversity - gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, nationality and diversity of thought. That's why we're committed to creating inclusive places to work, where everyone belongs and differences are valued and celebrated.

Interested in finding out more about what it's like to work at Trainline? Why not check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram and Glassdoor!