Financial Accountant
| Posting date: | 08 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £49,401 to £59,152 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 01 June 2026 |
| Location: | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 3 days per week |
| Company: | Scottish Government |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 3073 |
Summary
Are you interested in playing a key role in delivering the Scottish Government’s flagship activities, directly supporting key financial reporting?
This is an excellent opportunity to develop your career as a Financial Accountant within a corporate setting at the heart of the Scottish Government. You’ll be joining an innovative, forward-looking division with a vision to apply global best practice, and a commitment to support all staff to grow their professional knowledge, skills, and experience.
This is a pivotal role requiring strong financial control, sound judgement, and the ability to provide clear, expert advice to stakeholders across the organisation. You will play a key role in delivering the annual Consolidated Accounts and in supporting corporate financial exercises throughout the year.
Responsibilities
Support the preparation and delivery of the Scottish Government annual accounts.
Coordinate external audit activities and prepare required schedules for consolidated annual accounts.
Lead, support and line manage finance colleagues to ensure delivery of the team’s priorities, including driving improvements in balance sheet controls and processes as well as supporting further development of contingent liability reporting.
Provision of accounting and financial management advice to stakeholders on a wide range of finance topics, increasing financial knowledge and capability across the Scottish Government.
Build and maintain strong working relationships with all stakeholders, both internal and external, whilst managing the timing and quality of information.
Continuous review of processes and capabilities (within own team and of customers), seeking opportunities to improve effectiveness and understanding of the annual accounts and audit processes.
Ensure integrity of transactions on financial systems, ensuring good controls and checks are in place to maintain accuracy.
Support changes arising from the implementation of Oracle Cloud, in particular, contributing to the enhanced use of the Financial Consolidation and Close (FCC), and Non-Current Asset sub-modules.
Produce high quality reports and insightful management information for Senior Managers.
Ensure that the financial reporting systems, including the Non-Current Asset Register, support the timely and correct completion of financial management reporting, ensuring all reconciliations and other key controls are up to date.
Qualifications
The successful candidate must be fully CCAB qualified (or equivalent) with up-to-date CPD.
Success profile
Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.
Technical / Professional Skills:
Working with data in finance – Practitioner Level
Government finance – Expert Level
Business and Organisation - Working Level
You can find out more about the skills required here: Finance Profession Capability Framework
Behaviours:
Communicating and Influencing - (Level 3)
Making Effective Decisions - (Level 3)
Working Together - (Level 3)
You can find out more about Success Profiles here: Success profiles: candidate guide - gov.scot
How to apply
Apply online, providing a CV and Supporting Statement (of no more than 1000 words) which provides evidence of how you meet the skills, experience and behaviours listed in the Success Profile above.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can be used to support your application, but all statements and examples provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, and presented as your own) applications will be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
Please see our candidate guidance for more information on acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI in recruitment.
If invited for further assessment, this will consist of an interview and presentation. Assessments are scheduled for w/c 15 June 2026 however this may be subject to change.
This is an excellent opportunity to develop your career as a Financial Accountant within a corporate setting at the heart of the Scottish Government. You’ll be joining an innovative, forward-looking division with a vision to apply global best practice, and a commitment to support all staff to grow their professional knowledge, skills, and experience.
This is a pivotal role requiring strong financial control, sound judgement, and the ability to provide clear, expert advice to stakeholders across the organisation. You will play a key role in delivering the annual Consolidated Accounts and in supporting corporate financial exercises throughout the year.
Responsibilities
Support the preparation and delivery of the Scottish Government annual accounts.
Coordinate external audit activities and prepare required schedules for consolidated annual accounts.
Lead, support and line manage finance colleagues to ensure delivery of the team’s priorities, including driving improvements in balance sheet controls and processes as well as supporting further development of contingent liability reporting.
Provision of accounting and financial management advice to stakeholders on a wide range of finance topics, increasing financial knowledge and capability across the Scottish Government.
Build and maintain strong working relationships with all stakeholders, both internal and external, whilst managing the timing and quality of information.
Continuous review of processes and capabilities (within own team and of customers), seeking opportunities to improve effectiveness and understanding of the annual accounts and audit processes.
Ensure integrity of transactions on financial systems, ensuring good controls and checks are in place to maintain accuracy.
Support changes arising from the implementation of Oracle Cloud, in particular, contributing to the enhanced use of the Financial Consolidation and Close (FCC), and Non-Current Asset sub-modules.
Produce high quality reports and insightful management information for Senior Managers.
Ensure that the financial reporting systems, including the Non-Current Asset Register, support the timely and correct completion of financial management reporting, ensuring all reconciliations and other key controls are up to date.
Qualifications
The successful candidate must be fully CCAB qualified (or equivalent) with up-to-date CPD.
Success profile
Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.
Technical / Professional Skills:
Working with data in finance – Practitioner Level
Government finance – Expert Level
Business and Organisation - Working Level
You can find out more about the skills required here: Finance Profession Capability Framework
Behaviours:
Communicating and Influencing - (Level 3)
Making Effective Decisions - (Level 3)
Working Together - (Level 3)
You can find out more about Success Profiles here: Success profiles: candidate guide - gov.scot
How to apply
Apply online, providing a CV and Supporting Statement (of no more than 1000 words) which provides evidence of how you meet the skills, experience and behaviours listed in the Success Profile above.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can be used to support your application, but all statements and examples provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, and presented as your own) applications will be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
Please see our candidate guidance for more information on acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI in recruitment.
If invited for further assessment, this will consist of an interview and presentation. Assessments are scheduled for w/c 15 June 2026 however this may be subject to change.