Commercial Senior Audit Manager

Who you are

• High-Profile Contact: The senior relationship holder for Group FCs and Finance Directors, often representing the firm independently of the Engagement Lead
• Leadership Skills: Experience leading and developing a multi-grade team across a portfolio of engagements, including formal line management responsibility
• Business Development and Commercial Ownership: Experience owning budget and profitability at portfolio level, leading fee negotiations independently, and contributing to new business activity including tender and pitch input
• Fully qualified as a chartered accountant (e.g. ACA, ACCA, CA, ICAS, ICAEW or international equivalent)
• Experience planning, leading and delivering major external audit and assurance engagements in a senior managerial capacity, ideally at portfolio level
• Experience of formal line management and contributing to business development activity within an audit practice

What the job involves

• The PI Audit Senior Manager holds delegated authority across a portfolio of the firm's largest and most scrutinised audit engagements, operating with a level of autonomy that approaches partner responsibility on all but the most contentious matters
• The role carries accountability for audit quality, client relationship strength, financial performance and people leadership across the whole portfolio, not just a single engagement
• Alongside delivery, the Senior Manager is expected to actively grow the PI practice across Birmingham and the wider Midlands, through business development and building the firm's market profile, and to develop the pipeline of Managers coming through beneath them
• Audit quality and technical delivery
• Owns the design and oversight of audit strategies across a portfolio of PI engagements, ensuring consistent compliance with ISAs (UK), the firm's methodology and PI-specific regulatory requirements
• Acts as the final review point before Engagement Lead and quality reviews, exercising senior professional judgement on complex and contentious matters and escalating to the partner only where genuinely needed
• Is the go-to technical reference point for the practice on PI-specific matters, and owns independence and ethical compliance across the portfolio
• Client and stakeholder management
• Acts as the senior day-to-day relationship holder for Group FCs and Finance Directors, often representing the firm independently of the Engagement Lead
• Leads presentation of audit findings to Audit Committees and owns proactive management of client expectations on timetable, deliverables and fees
• Actively contributes to new business activity for the PI practice, including tender and pitch input
• People leadership
• Leads and develops a team of Managers, Assistant Managers and Associates across multiple engagements, holding formal line management responsibility for Assistant Managers
• Takes a lead role in resource planning and the wider talent agenda for the Birmingham office
• Financial and commercial management
• Owns budget and profitability across the portfolio, leading fee negotiations independently where overruns or scope changes arise
• Owns the growth strategy for the PI portfolio and the wider Audit practice in the Midlands
• Project management and delivery
• Plans and oversees delivery across multiple concurrent PI audit cycles, coordinating specialist input at portfolio scale
• Reviews all client deliverables across the portfolio for technical accuracy and consistency of quality and messaging
• Risk, ethics and professional standards
• Role models the firm's risk management policies and acts with integrity and in line with the firm's values in all dealings, including when representing the firm in the partner's absence
• Maintains professional competence through mandatory training, applied consistently across the portfolio

Benefits

• Life cover
• Income protection
• Matched pension
• Private medical, including anytime access to Doctor@Hand and Stronger Minds
• Professional subscriptions