Graduate Management Accountant - Graduate Scheme 2025

The salary for this role is £32,729.

This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.

UKAEA’s two-year graduate scheme is split by 80% of your time developing both your general work-related skills and professional qualifications and 20% of your working time dedicated to graduate training and development.  Within the graduate training and development, there is a core suite of activities designed to develop your professional and business skills. Elements of this programme are flexible and can be tailored to your personal development needs and to those of your specific job role. 

The Role

The role of the Graduate Management Accountant is to support Management Accounting Teams with the provision of financial reports and accounting. These teams could support scientific, property or overhead programmes. The role plays a key part in preparation of monthly financial reports and assisting with understanding and explaining performance.  The role is responsible for the accurate reporting of financial information, with involvement in grant, collaboration and commercial revenue accounting. This is an important role, and the post holder will quickly develop a detailed understanding of the areas supported.   

Across the two years the Graduate Management Accountant will rotate around management accounting teams within the organisation and may include a rotation in Financial Accounts, as grounding and experience to assist the development of management accounting skills.  

Additional Responsibilities:

• Responsible for all period end accounting entries in the finance system (U4BW) relating to the area supported, ensuring accurate recognition of revenue and expenditure in accordance with UKAEA financial policy.  
• Responsible for ensuring that any sales invoices are raised correctly in a timely manner, and associated journals entered into U4BW, including accrued income and Income in Advance.  
• Prepare balance sheet reconciliation files for the area supported, and review with the Head of Financial Accounts, agree action and further analysis as required.  
• Work with Programme Finance Managers to review periodic results and follow up and investigate any variances as requested.  
• Prepare and issue monthly reports within Management Accounting Teams as well as creating the tables for the monthly Finance Paper and project/programme boards as relevant, include analysis and appropriate explanations of performance, highlight key risks.  
• Support Management Accounting Teams with the budget and forecast process.  
• Maintain the project structure within U4BW, including delegation changes and creating/amending/closing work orders.  
• Provide assistance to finance and business unit staff to resolves issues including timesheet and goods receipting as well as provide assistance with general financial queries. 
• Liaise with the Capital and Tax Accountant over the classification and reporting of capital expenditure to ensure that items are capitalised correctly and provide clarity as to reasons for variances.  
• Assist with audits and process reviews, such as related to Grants, Internal and External Audit.    
• Support finance wide initiatives, such as testing of new reports & upgrades.  
• Responsible for delivery of finance projects, including agreeing clear scope, deliverable and timeframes.  

Essential Requirements:

• Successful completion of a relevant Finance, Maths or Business degree, within the past 2 years  
• Ability to analyse data and interpret & present financial information to non-financial stakeholders. 
• IT literate, fluent in Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word and PowerPoint (experience of SharePoint desirable). 
• Strong time management skills including the ability to prioritise workloads. 
• Good written and oral communication skills  
• Good attention to detail  
• Ability to work as a team player & under their own initiative.  

A full list of our benefits can be found here https://careers.ukaea.uk/life-at-ukaea/employee-benefits/

We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organization. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.