Senior Business Controller

CompanyThales

LocationGlasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Posted At1/6/2026

UK Visa Sponsorship Analytics

Occupation Type

Chartered and certified accountants

Occupation Code Skill LevelHigher Skilled

Sponsorship Salary Threshold

£49,200 (£25.23 per hour)

Occupation rate applies

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Description

About the Company

Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity and inclusion are integral to the success of Thales.

About the Role

Thales UK currently have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Business Controller to join the Integrated Combat Systems Mast (ICSM) team. The project is a high value and high complexity critical project in support of the Dreadnought submarine project being delivered by our customer BAE Systems. The project brings together capability from three areas of the Thales Group (Visuals/ EW/ Comms) to support the Dreadnought Programme and this role has financial responsibilities for the consolidated position, as well as the OME content.

Defence domain with experience of SSRO/DEFCARS preferable

Experience and Qualifications

A good understanding of commercial and financial aspects of the business.
Ideally coming from a Defence domain with experience of SSRO/DEFCARS.
Be able to work efficiently and manage multiple competing priorities.

Significant depth of long-term project accounting experience, ideally in a Defence domain.

Be comfortable working with ambiguity and proposing solutions to complex issues.

Be inquisitive and have a hunger for new knowledge.

Be able to present and explain the implications of complex business issues as they arise.

Be confident interacting with cross functional managers and individuals at all levels in the business.

Be flexible to work in a changing environment.

Hold a professional accounting qualification (CIMA/ACCA/ACA/equivalent).

Ideally educated to degree level (preferably in a finance, or related discipline) and/or have proven experience of Project Accounting within an engineering/manufacturing background.

Highly proficient in Excel. Oracle and TM1 experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Programme Control

Partner closely with Programme Director and CAM leads to ensure costs to completion estimates and estimates at completion (EAC) are correctly reflected and are in accordance with Thales policies and procedures.
Monitor and challenge the integrated financial risks, cost risks & contingencies across the Programme.

Ensure the completion of the Programme Dashboards/CSR for OME content and consolidated CSR.

Presenting complex Programme financial summaries in monthly critical Programme reviews to large senior level audiences, providing clear and consistent messaging.

Support Programme Managers to understand actual costs incurred through weekly cost actual reporting and analysis.

Proactively identify cost savings and mitigation strategies within regular EAC review cycles.

Support Programme team in ensuring EVM Metrics are consistent with EAC review evolutions.

Ensure that the financial terms of the commercial contract and any new bids won (e.g. VOP/VOC) are accurately applied to the selling price, CBB and EAC on ICSM.

Budgeting & Forecasting:

Manage forecast of orders, sales, margins, invoicing and cash leveraging T360, Oracle and TM1 Planning tools.
Monitor and control ICSM customer POs & billing plan and ETC cost phasing to effectively manage OCF forecasts.
Coordinate and produce the full spectrum of budget and forecast deliverables, including Multi Year Budget, Monthly Budget and regular in year reforecasts for ICSM.

Partnering with cross functional teams such as procurement, tactical buyers, industry, PMO, commercial and sales/bids to build and validate phased plans.

Ensuring that all financial planning cycles are built in conjunction with Programme team and latest forecast deliverable/contractual dates and are well balanced in terms of both risk and opportunity.

Month End & Management Reporting:

Completion of ICSM month end including full P&L and balance sheet reconciliations with associated variance analysis commentary circulated to the programme team.
Diligently review & challenge Business Operational Review (BOR) project status & monthly risks and opportunities register.
Preparation of consolidated project financials submitted to Anaplan and to be the key point of contact for consolidated project reporting into the BL in France.
Assessments on project efficiency via quarterly Project Portfolio Dashboard (PPD), as well as contribution to PP&E essentials sign off with Quality team and Programme Director.

Financial and Internal Controls:

To be the primary point of contact for ICSM audit activity, delivering accurate information in a timely fashion to external audit partners via the audit portal.

Digesting complex process/control documents and leveraging key learnings to ensure Thales policies and procedures are complied with on ICSM Programme.

Presenting to external audit teams at intermittent audit points throughout the year, documenting and explaining in year evolutions with clear and consistent communications.

To respond to Thales UK and BL level queries in a concise and accurate manner on contract overview.

Other Key Responsibilities:

Participate & challenge in bid process and support ongoing commercial on claims with the customer.
Support Programme team in identifying and quantifying margin improvement initiative opportunities.
SSRO/DEFCARS annual reporting via the portal for the ICSM Programme.
Support ad-hoc projects as required for Finance/Programme leadership, (e.g. IFRS15 assessments, crafting financial memos to communicate key messages.)

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence