The FP&A Hiring Problem Facing UK Finance Leaders
Ask any Finance Director what keeps them up at night and a fair number will mention the same thing: they cannot find a good FP&A hire. Not because the role doesn’t exist on paper, but because the person who can actually do it well has become one of the scarcest profiles in UK finance.
It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago, Financial Planning & Analysis was seen as a natural stepping stone from a Big Four training contract or a management accounts role. Today it sits at the intersection of finance, data, technology and boardroom strategy, and that shift has quietly made it one of the most difficult positions to fill in 2026.
What follows covers why demand has surged, where companies keep going wrong in their hiring process, and how a specialist approach to FP&A recruitment in London differs from posting a standard job advert.
Why Demand for FP&A Professionals Has Surged
A decade ago, FP&A was largely a reporting function. Someone pulled the numbers together, checked them against budget, and presented a variance report once a month. That version of the job barely exists anymore.
Three shifts that changed the role
First, businesses now expect finance to think ahead rather than look back. Boards want scenario planning, rolling forecasts and commercial insight, not just a rear-view mirror on last quarter. That requires people who understand both the mechanics of financial modeling and the commercial drivers behind the numbers.
Second, the tools changed faster than the talent pool did. Platforms like Anaplan, Adaptive Insights and Power BI have become standard in mid-sized and large UK businesses, but there simply aren’t enough professionals who are genuinely fluent in both finance and these systems. A candidate might be excellent at building a three-statement model in Excel but struggle to translate that into a live Anaplan environment, and vice versa.
Third, private equity-backed businesses and scale-ups have normalized the idea that FP&A should sit close to the CEO, not buried three layers down in the finance function. That has pushed up expectations for the role at every level, including for candidates who are only two or three years into their career.
Put those together, and you get a role that looks deceptively familiar on a job spec but is, in practice, asking for a much rarer combination of skills than it did even three years ago.
The Biggest Hiring Challenges Companies Face
Most Finance Directors don’t struggle to attract applicants. They struggle to attract the right ones.
A typical FP&A vacancy at a £20 million to £150 million turnover business in London or the South East will often generate a large volume of applications through a generic job board posting. Of those, hiring managers commonly report that only a small handful are genuinely suitable, and fewer still are actually available or willing to move for the salary on offer.
Recurring problems behind the shortage
The skills gap is wider than job titles suggest. Two candidates with the same job title, “FP&A Manager,” can have completely different skill sets. One might be strong on budgeting and forecasting but have never built a model from scratch. Another might be a strong technical modeler with limited experience presenting to a board. Sorting this out from a CV alone is close to impossible.
Salary expectations have moved quickly. Strong FP&A professionals in London are increasingly aware of their market value, particularly those with SaaS, private equity or multi-entity group experience. Businesses that haven’t reviewed their banding in the last 18 months are often surprised by the gap between what they’re offering and what the market now expects.
Retention risk is high even after a successful hire. Good FP&A candidates tend to have multiple live conversations at once. A slow internal process, even a two-week delay between interview stages, can lose a strong candidate to a faster-moving competitor.
Internal referrals and generic job boards no longer reach passive candidates. The best FP&A professionals are rarely browsing job boards. They are usually employed, performing well, and only open to a conversation if it’s framed around genuine career progression rather than a lateral move.
Why Traditional Recruitment Methods No Longer Work
A generalist recruiter, or an internal HR team stretched across every department, will typically approach an FP&A vacancy the same way they’d approach any finance hire: post the role, screen CVs against keywords, shortlist based on job titles and years of experience.
The problem is that this approach rewards candidates who are good at writing CVs, not necessarily candidates who are good at FP&A.
Consider a real pattern that plays out often. A candidate’s CV lists “advanced Excel” and “forecasting” prominently. In the interview, it becomes clear they’ve spent most of their time maintaining an existing model built by someone else, rather than building forecasting logic from first principles. That’s a meaningful difference for a business that needs someone to design a planning process from scratch, but it’s invisible on paper.
Generic recruitment also tends to undervalue commercial acumen. A brilliant technical modeler who cannot explain a variance to a non-finance stakeholder in plain English will struggle in a role that increasingly sits close to commercial and operational teams. Traditional screening rarely tests for this.
How Specialist Recruiters Approach FP&A Hiring Differently
According to Accountancy Capital, this is where a recruiter who specializes specifically in FP&A recruitment earns their fee, rather than simply acting as a CV filter.
A specialist recruiter typically brings three advantages that a generalist process struggles to replicate.
They understand the technical distinctions within the role. A specialist will know the practical difference between someone who has built a driver-based forecasting model in Anaplan versus someone who has only maintained one, and will probe for that difference in a screening call rather than relying on a candidate’s self-description.
They maintain a warm network of passive candidates. Because they work exclusively or primarily in this space, specialist recruiters tend to have ongoing relationships with strong FP&A professionals who aren’t actively job hunting but would consider the right opportunity. This matters enormously, because the strongest candidates are rarely the ones applying cold.
They can benchmark salary and structure realistically. A specialist recruiter who works across multiple businesses in a sector will usually have a clearer, more current picture of what a competitive offer looks like than an internal HR team benchmarking against last year’s data.
In practice, the aim is a shorter and more targeted hiring process. Rather than sifting a large volume of applications to find a handful worth interviewing, a business is presented with a shortlist that has already been screened for capability and genuine interest.
What Employers Should Look for Before Hiring an FP&A Professional
Before writing a job description, it’s worth clarifying a few things internally.
Decide whether the priority is technical modeling strength, commercial storytelling, or systems expertise, because very few candidates are equally strong across all three, and being clear on the priority will sharpen the search considerably.
Be honest about the tools the business actually uses day to day. A candidate who is excellent in Excel but has never touched Anaplan may still be the right hire if the business isn’t using Anaplan yet, but this needs to be explicit rather than assumed.
Map out the interview process before the search begins. A two-stage process that can be completed within ten working days tends to fare better than a five-stage process that drags on for six weeks, particularly for candidates who are in demand.
Finally, think about where this role sits in twelve months, not just today. FP&A hires are often brought in for a specific project, such as building a rolling forecast model or supporting a fundraise, but the strongest candidates want to understand the longer-term trajectory of the role before committing.
What the Shift Means for FP&A Hiring in 2026
FP&A has become harder to hire for in 2026 not because good candidates have disappeared, but because the role itself has evolved faster than most hiring processes have kept up with.
Businesses that treat it like a standard finance vacancy, posted broadly and screened by keyword, will keep losing out on the strongest candidates to competitors who move faster and understand the nuance of the role.
Working with a recruiter who specializes in this area, rather than finance recruitment in general, is one way businesses look to close that gap. The intent is a shorter process, a more relevant shortlist, and a hire suited to what modern FP&A actually demands.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it typically take to hire a strong FP&A candidate in the UK?
A well-run process, from brief to offer, usually takes four to six weeks for a mid-level FP&A hire in London, though senior or highly specialized roles can take longer given the smaller pool of suitable candidates.
What salary range should we expect for FP&A professionals in 2026?
This varies significantly by seniority, sector and location, but businesses should expect that salary expectations have risen noticeably over the past two years, particularly for candidates with SaaS, private equity-backed, or multi-entity group experience.
Should we prioritize technical modeling skills or commercial communication skills?
It depends on the role, but many businesses underestimate how much value a candidate who can explain financial insight clearly to non-finance stakeholders adds, especially as FP&A increasingly works alongside commercial and operational teams rather than in isolation.
Is it worth using a specialist recruiter for a single FP&A hire, or only for multiple roles?
Even for a single hire, a specialist recruiter’s existing network of passive candidates and sector-specific screening can significantly shorten the process and reduce the risk of a mis-hire, which is often costly enough to justify the investment on its own.
