Project Accountant

Overview

Role: Project Accountant

Location: Oxford (Harwell)

Role ID: 2023-1788

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

We are currently looking for a Project Accountant to join our Finance team.

This role is to provide excellent financial support and information to operational Business Area consultancy teams at all levels including Business Unit Director, Senior BU Management and project managers/directors, as well as senior finance management. To enable effective financial management of teams and contracts, and support in the achievement of the Company’s financial targets and growth.

Key Accountabilities

• To help drive financial best practice. Working with Project Managers, Project Directors and Business Area Management to understand, analyse and drive financial performance within the business, including variance analysis and supporting practice management in financial reporting and forecasting.
• Support all financial aspects of Projects across the entire life cycle from proposal through to project completion, including revenue recognition, monthly management accounts preparation, forecasting and tax implications.
• Support to effective and timely delivery of Sales Invoicing and input to Working Capital improvement process.
• Support to CRM / Pipeline processes including integrity checks and new customer account creation.
• Support Business Area growth in the UK and Internationally.
• Support weekly resource planning / timesheet and tracking processes.
• Train and support project managers in financial systems, policies, procedures, and best practice.
• Provide accurate and relevant reporting of management information to the operational teams.
• Liaising with commercial, sales and other central teams, as well as auditors and customers as required.
• Input to development, enhancement and implementation of business wide financial systems and process and other projects within the finance team.
• Ad hoc support to wider Finance team and Senior Finance Management as required, including leave cover.

Key competencies and experience

• Studying, or starting to study, toward CIMA (or similar) qualification. Support for studying available.
• Relevant financial/commercial experience.
• Good Excel skills (e.g. SUMIFs / Lookups / Pivot tables)
• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability and flexibility to work under pressure to strict deadlines.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team, plan, prioritise and be responsible for deliverables.

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure a culture of inclusivity, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.