About Us

At Salford City Council, we are committed to delivering highquality services that improve outcomes for our residents. Our Finance function plays a vital role in supporting informed decisionmaking, protecting public funds, and ensuring value for money across the organisation.

Our management accountancy teams work closely with services to understand how resources are used, identify financial risks early, and support sustainable delivery. Collaboration, constructive challenge, and forwardlooking financial insight sit at the heart of what we do.

This is an exciting time to join Salford. We are implementing a new finance and procurement system, modernising the way we work and strengthening financial management across the Council.

About the Role

We currently have an Accountant vacancy within our Place Directorate.

This post is firmly focused on management accounting and financial business partnering.

It is not a transactional finance, treasury, or financial accounts role.

The purpose of the role is to support budget holders to manage their resources effectively by providing robust budget monitoring, forecasting, and meaningful variance analysis, alongside constructive challenge and advice.

You will work closely with managers to understand financial performance, explain variances, identify risks, and support decisions about spend and resources.

The core day to day activities will involve

  • Owning budget monitoring, forecasting and reforecasting for assigned service areas
  • Producing clear and insightful variance analysis, explaining drivers rather than just reporting movements
  • Working directly with budget holders to understand spend patterns, pressures, and resource plans
  • Challenging assumptions, profiling, and value for money in a constructive and professional way
  • Providing forwardlooking financial analysis to support operational and strategic decisions
  • Identifying emerging financial risks early and supporting managers to take corrective action
  • Supporting continuous improvement, including the implementation of the new finance and procurement system

This role involves regular engagement with nonfinance colleagues and requires confidence in explaining financial information clearly and pragmatically.

This role is not for you if you are primarily looking for:

  • Accounts payable or accounts receivable roles
  • Treasury or cashmanagementfocused positions
  • Financial accounting, audit, or statutory reportingled roles
  • Roles with limited stakeholder engagement or financial challenge

About You

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:

  • Strong management accounting experience, including budget setting, monitoring, forecasting, and variance analysis
  • Experience working directly with budget holders or nonfinance managers
  • Confidence to challenge financial assumptions and spending decisions in a supportive and evidencebased way
  • An ability to translate complex financial information into clear, actionable insight
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills
  • A proactive and collaborative approach to improving financial management and ways of working
  • (Desirable) Experience within a public sector finance environment, ideally local government, with an understanding of grant funding, regulatory frameworks and public sector financial processes.

You may be fully qualified, partqualified, or actively working towards a professional accountancy qualification. We are happy to discuss development pathways for the right candidate.

What success looks like in this role

Within your first months, you will be a trusted finance partner to servicesproviding meaningful variance analysis, producing reliable forecasts, and helping managers understand and actively manage their financial position.

Contact and Application Information

To find out more about this role, please contact Paul Guest at:
paul.guest@salford.gov.uk

Please do not send CVs to this email address, as they will not be accepted.

When applying, please ensure your supporting statement clearly sets out how your experience meets the requirements of the role, including examples of budget management, forecasting, and variance analysis.

Supporting Documents

↗ Role Profile

Ready to apply?

Location

Salford Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton, m27 5bn, United Kingdom

Job ID

3608

Supporting You Through Every Step of Your Journey

We want every candidate to feel welcomed, informed and confident when applying for a role with us.

This section brings together everything you need to succeed - from guidance on writing an authentic application to understanding how to use AI responsibly.

You’ll also find information about our Greater Manchester commitments, including our inclusive employment schemes and standards, as well as tools to help you explore your potential pay, benefits and entitlements. We’re here to ensure you have the support you need at every stage.

Working for a local authority in Greater Manchester

Local authorities across Greater Manchester are proud to be part of a shared commitment to widening access to employment and ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

These commitments span a number of long‑standing schemes and initiatives designed to open doors, remove barriers and ensure all applicants feel valued and respected throughout their employment journey.

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Your Pay, Your Benefits, Your Future

Explore easy‑to‑use tools that help you understand your take‑home pay and how different employment situations may affect the financial support available to you and your household.

  1. Calculate Your Take‑Home Pay

    Use this salary calculator to estimate your net pay after tax, National Insurance, and pension contributions.

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Applying Authentically With AI: Our Greater Manchester Approach

Across Greater Manchester’s local authorities, we want to hear your genuine experiences, skills and motivations, expressed in your own words.

To keep our recruitment process fair and inclusive, please complete your application personally and follow the instructions carefully. AI can be used to support you - for example, to help structure your answers or as a reasonable adjustment - but your application should still reflect your authentic voice.

Applications that depend too heavily on AI‑generated content may not progress to shortlisting.

This guidance outlines acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI, along with suggestions for using it in a way that supports you while keeping your application true to you.

  1. What Is AI and How Do We Use It Across Greater Manchester?

    AI refers to technology that can create or refine content, such as text, ideas, summaries, or planning. It can help improve productivity, problem-solving, and creativity.

    We’re open to using innovative digital tools where they can help us work smarter and deliver better services for our residents. However, every use of AI is carefully considered to make sure it is ethical, responsible, and aligned with public-sector values.

    When it comes to recruitment, we take a human-centred approach.

    This means:

    • A trained hiring manager reads every application

    • Shortlisting is based on objective criteria required for the job

    • Interviews are conducted in person or via teams by the hiring manager for the role

    • All hiring decisions are made by hiring managers, not algorithms

    AI does not make decisions in our recruitment process and our managers are being upskilled to spot AI in applications, particularly when this might have been used in a way that doesn’t feel genuine. If something in an application raises a question or concern, we will test this out with assessments or at the interview stage to confirm authenticity.

    Our aim isn’t to catch anyone out but to make sure we’re getting to know the real you, giving every candidate a fair chance and finding the right person for the role.

  2. Using AI in Your Application

    When it comes to job applications, what matters most to us is you. We want to see your personality, your experience, and what excites you about joining our team. 

    We recognise that AI can be a helpful tool to support accessibility during the application process. If you choose to use AI for support, please read the instructions carefully and make sure your application is written in your own words, reflecting your genuine skills, knowledge, experience and enthusiasm.

    We’re looking forward to hearing your story.

  3. How to use AI Effectively and Responsibly

    Your application is your chance to show us:

    • Who you are

    • What you can bring

    • The values you hold

    • Why you want to make a difference

    AI can help you organise your thoughts or improve clarity but it cannot express your unique voice, experiences, or motivations.

    AI is most helpful when used to:

    • Help you structure the information you are providing to evidence the criteria

    • Give examples of how to use STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result)

    • Proof-read to highlight grammar or spelling errors

    • Provide inspiration if you're finding it difficult to find the right words to explain something

    But remember: your honesty, lived experience, and motivations are irreplaceable.

  4. Do’s and Don’ts for Using AI in the Recruitment Process

    Do:

    • Use AI as a supportive tool, not a replacement

    • Ask AI to help tidy up your writing or clarify structure

    • Use it to brainstorm examples, then rewrite them in your own voice

    • Reflect on AI suggestions and adapt them to match your experience

    • Use AI to help with research, but express your understanding yourself

    Don’t:

    • Copy and paste AI-generated content directly into your application

    • Let AI exaggerate or invent experience you do not have

    • Rely on generic statements that don’t reflect the specific role requirements

    • Remove your individuality, we want to hear your voice

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