Finance Business Manager

Job summary

The AI Security Institute (AISI) is the largest team in a government dedicated to understanding AI capabilities and risks in the world.

Our mission is to equip governments with an empirical understanding of the safety of advanced AI systems. We conduct research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI, and develop and test risk mitigations. We focus on risks with security implications, including the potential of AI to assist with the development of chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks, enable crimes such as fraud, and the possibility of loss of control.

The risks from AI are not sci-fi, they are urgent. By combining the agility of a tech start-up with the expertise and mission-driven focus of government, we’re building a unique and innovative organisation to prevent AI’s harms from impeding its potential.

Job description

Our Finance team is the operational backbone that enables our researchers and policy experts to keep pace with the speed of AI development. This is a rare opportunity to shape how one of the most ambitious organisations in government actually runs its operations and approaches financial challenges.

We are building a high performing finance team that can transform traditional government finance operations into streamlined, efficient processes and support senior leaders with critical business planning and insights to enable us to deliver against our mission. Every purchase AISI makes runs through us, whether that is compute, new hires or research collaborations. To support this at the pace AISI needs, we think carefully about the best-in-class tools we use to do our jobs (e.g. Airtable, Claude Cowork) and find creative ways to maximise the impact of every £ AISI spends.

The Finance Business Manager will own a portfolio of AISI business areas, acting as the primary finance contact for stakeholders and delivering a high-quality operational finance service. The postholder will be responsible for financial management across their portfolio, ensuring strong financial control, accurate financial reporting, effective forecasting and excellent customer service.

This role is right for you if you enjoy taking ownership, solving complex problems and improving how things work. You will act as a trusted adviser to frontier AI researchers and policy makers, a subject matter expert on purchase-to-pay processes, and work closely with colleagues across Finance, Commercial, Grants and Digital teams to ensure AISI has efficient, well-controlled and scalable finance processes.

This is an opportunity to play a key role in one of AISI's core operational functions, helping drive service excellence, strong financial control and continuous improvement across the organisation.

We expect you to:

• Own a portfolio of AISI business areas, building trusted relationships across the organisation.
• Provide high-quality financial advice, reporting and analysis to support effective decision-making, budget management and forecasting.
• Act as the Finance Team's subject matter expert for purchase-to-pay processes, ensuring a high-quality service and strong financial control environment.
• Deliver accurate month-end activities, including journals, accruals and prepayments, ensuring financial information is reliable and supported by a robust audit trail.
• Drive continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to simplify processes, strengthen controls and improve the stakeholder experience. This might include setting up Airtable automations or designing a new finance reporting dashboard
• Collaborate effectively with colleagues across Finance, Commercial, Grants and Digital teams to deliver efficient and scalable finance services.

What you'll be doing

• Manage an assigned portfolio of business areas, providing day-to-day finance support and guidance to stakeholders.
• Represent Finance in portfolio and workstream meetings, providing financial insight, challenge and support to decision-making.
• Oversee the end-to-end purchase-to-pay process, including requisitions, purchase orders, receipting and supplier payment issues.
• Review and resolve complex finance queries received through the Finance mailbox.
• Produce financial reports, management information and analysis to support forecasting, budget monitoring and decision-making.
• Deliver month-end activities including accruals, prepayments, journals and reconciliations.
• Monitor expenditure, commitments and forecast positions, identifying risks and escalating issues where appropriate.
• Ensure transactions are accurately coded, appropriately evidenced and supported by a clear audit trail.
• Develop finance guidance and deliver training to colleagues across AISI.
• Work with Central Finance, Commercial, Grants and Digital teams to improve processes, reporting and controls.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

1. Experience working in a finance, finance operations, business management or similar role within a complex organisation.
2. Strong understanding of purchase-to-pay processes, including requisitions, purchase orders, receipting, invoice management and supplier payments.
3. Experience using Oracle or similar financial systems to manage financial transactions, reporting and financial controls.
4. Experience producing financial reports, management information and analysis to support budgeting, forecasting and decision-making.
5. Knowledge of month-end accounting activities, including journals, accruals, prepayments and reconciliations.
6. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a high level of attention to detail.
7. Ability to build effective relationships and communicate financial information clearly to both finance and non-finance stakeholders.

Desirable Criteria

1. Experience working within government finance or the wider public sector.
2. Experience developing guidance, delivering training or coaching colleagues.
3. Experience using reporting, workflow or automation tools such as Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate or Airtable.
4. Knowledge of government finance controls and governance requirements, such as Managing Public Money or Consolidated Budgeting Guidance.

Working towards, or holding, a relevant accounting qualification.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £44,620, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £12,926 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a ran