The Vacancy
Paradigm Housing Group is one of the UK's leading housing associations, committed to providing high-quality homes and services to our residents. We are currently seeking an experienced and highly motivated Head of Financial Accounting to join our Finance team. This role offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the financial stability and growth of a significant property portfolio, with a housing property register valued at over £1.5bn.
The Opportunity
This is a rare and exciting opportunity for a fully qualified accountant to step into a senior leadership role at Paradigm Housing Group. As the Head of Financial Accounting, you will play a critical role in shaping our financial strategy and ensuring the integrity of our financial reporting. You will be responsible for overseeing the production of our year-end accounts, managing our housing property register, and ensuring compliance with all relevant financial regulations.
Key Responsibilities:
* Financial Reporting & Compliance: Lead the preparation of year-end financial statements, ensuring they meet all regulatory requirements and are completed accurately and on time. You will be the primary contact for external auditors and will manage the audit process from start to finish.
* Housing Property Register Management: Maintain and update our housing property register, ensuring the accuracy of data and its alignment with accounting standards. With a portfolio valued at over £1.5bn, your meticulous attention to detail will ensure our assets are properly recorded and valued.
* Board Pack Production: Collaborate closely with the business partnering team to produce comprehensive board packs that provide valuable insights and drive strategic decision-making. Your work will directly influence board discussions and the future direction of the organization.
* Tax & Regulatory Compliance: Oversee all aspects of tax compliance, including VAT and Corporation Tax, ensuring timely and accurate submissions. You will also be responsible for keeping the organization abreast of changes in tax laws and regulations, advising on their impact and implementing necessary changes.
* Team Leadership: Lead, manage, and develop a small team of financial professionals, fostering a culture of high performance and continuous improvement. You will be responsible for setting goals, providing ongoing coaching and feedback, and supporting the professional development of your team members.
* Technical Accounting Expertise: Serve as the organization's lead expert on technical accounting matters, providing guidance on complex issues and ensuring consistent application of accounting standards across the group. Your expertise will be crucial in navigating the ever-evolving landscape of financial regulations.
* Continuous Improvement: Drive improvements in financial and management reporting systems, ensuring that our processes are efficient, effective, and aligned with best practices. You will lead initiatives to enhance our financial controls and reporting accuracy.
About You
To excel in this role, you will need to be a fully qualified accountant (ACA, CA, ACCA, IPFA, CIMA) with a deep understanding of financial and management accounting, statutory reporting, and regulatory compliance. You should have significant experience in preparing year-end accounts, managing audits, and working with large asset bases. Your strong leadership skills will enable you to build and nurture a high-performing team, while your excellent communication abilities will allow you to engage effectively with senior stakeholders and external partners.
Experience in the social housing sector or a similar environment with a large property portfolio would be advantageous, as would familiarity with Sun Accounts. You will need to be proactive, detail-oriented, and capable of managing multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Benefits of Working at Paradigm Housing
* A defined contribution pension scheme with up to 9.5% employer contribution rate
* Life cover with 3 times basic salary
* Group Income Protection and Sickness Plan
* 30 days annual holiday + Bank holidays + days in between Christmas and New Year
* Bonus scheme that links to both corporate and individual performance
* A Wellbeing programme that promotes and supports good physical, mental and financial health
* Family friendly policies with generous maternity, paternity, shared parental and adoption leave policies
* Medicash level 3 Health cash plan worth over £1800 per year for employee and dependent children.
* Giving back days - 3 days a year to give back to local communities or charities
* Modern offices with free parking and flexible ways of working
Further information
For the full job description and person specification for the role please see the attachment at the bottom of this page. Should you have any queries about this vacancy please email recruitment@paradigmhousing.co.uk and we will respond as soon as possible.
As part of our application process, we ask for a covering statement and CV so we can assess your application against our essential and desired criteria as set out in the job description and person specification. Please include in your covering statement how you meet the criteria so we can see how well you match our requirements and give your application the consideration it deserves.
Thank you for your interest in Paradigm Housing Group thus far.
Shortlisting will be conducted in line with the essential and desirable criteria set out in the person specification. We reserve the right to close this role earlier than the published date should a suitable candidate be identified.
About us
We are Paradigm Housing Group.
We manage more than 17,000 homes across the South East.
We know that house prices in the areas where we work are high, both to buy and rent. We want to help more people have a safe and sustainable home that they can afford.
As a charity, the money we make goes into building new homes and providing an excellent service for residents.
We are a Best Companies two-star accredited organisation in recognition of our high employee engagement and commitment to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is free to be themselves and feel like they belong. We are clearly focused on the delivery of our five-year corporate plan with ambitious and challenging objectives including delivering one of the sector's largest digital transformation programmes, improving our environment and sustainability targets and delivering more quality homes to people who need them.
Our benefits
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* Holidays - 25 days rising to 30 with length of service (30 days starting for senior roles) plus an extra three paid days off between Christmas and New Year, and the opportunity to buy up to another five days.
* Pension scheme: a defined contribution scheme with employer contributions of 7.5% or 9.5% depending on the employee's contribution rate.
* Car leasing scheme.
* Annual bonus potential.
* 1 paid professional subscription per year.
* Family friendly policies including generous paternity, maternity, shared parental and adoption leave, sabbaticals and more.
* Health cash plan - worth over £1,800 per year. Includes dental, optical, prescriptions and flu jabs, physiotherapy, chiropractic therapy, reflexology, Sports massage and more.
* Hybrid working for many roles.
* Up to three paid Giving Back (volunteer) Days a year.
* Modern collaborative offices, with free parking and charging points for electric vehicles.
* Opportunities for career development and progression.
* Social events such as quiz nights, Christmas Party, Summer BBQ.
Our Vision
We provide excellent services to customers.
And build new homes to help more people.
We make sure our homes are safe and sustainable.
And strive to do more by making the most of our resources.
Working For Us
Our Values
Safer Together
The safety of our customers, colleagues and ourselves is a priority in everything we do.
Driving Improvement
We seek to do things better and deliver value to our customers.
Working As One
We work collaboratively with others and also take personal responsibility for delivering outcomes for our customers, colleagues and stakeholders.
Acting Thoughtfully
We make ourselves aware of our customers' and colleagues' circumstances, and consider this thoughtfully and respectfully, and with attention to the impact on the environment, when taking action.
Being Clear
We will communicate in a clear and consistent manner so that our customers, colleagues and stakeholders understand the high standards that we work to.
Please note that customer facing roles may be subject to a DBS check. #J-18808-Ljbffr