Canada Life and Irish Life
Financial Reporting and Change Manager
Get notified of more jobs like this · No spam, ever
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
About Canada Life UK
Canada Life UK looks after the retirement, investment, and protection needs of individuals, families, and companies. We help to build better futures for our customers, our intermediaries, and our employees by operating as a modern, agile, and welcoming organisation.
Part of our parent company Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life UK has operated in the United Kingdom since 1903. We have hundreds of respected and supported employees committed to doing the right thing for our customers and colleagues.
Canada Life UK is transforming to create a more customer-focused business by providing our customers with expertise on financial and tax planning, offering home finance and annuities propositions, and providing collective fund solutions to third-party customers.
Job Summary
The Financial Reporting and Change Manager is the organisation's subject matter expert for ledger integrity, accounting architecture, and the operational implementation of complex accounting requirements.
The role is responsible for ensuring that accounting transactions are accurately reflected within the general ledger and associated sub-ledger infrastructure, maintaining a robust control framework over accounting entries, reporting outputs, chart of account structures, and accounting data flows.
Operating within a highly complex finance environment characterised by multiple data feeds, and evolving accounting requirements and IFRS 17 infrastructure, the role holder will act as the bridge between commercial activity, technical accounting standards, and operational finance delivery.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the integrity and governance of the general ledger structure and accounting architecture.
- Ensure accounting entries accurately reflect underlying commercial transactions and comply with applicable accounting standards.
- Contribute to technical accounting papers.
- Lead the development and maintenance of accounting rule frameworks.
- Drive optimisation of financial reporting, data quality, and accounting processes.
- Manage and develop a small specialist team.
- Influence stakeholders across Finance, Actuarial, Technology, Change, Operations, and Risk functions.
- Lead the operational implementation of accounting change through complex finance and reporting infrastructure.
What You’ll Do
Ledger Governance & Accounting Control
- Own the operational integrity of the general ledger and associated accounting infrastructure.
- Ensure all accounting postings, journals, and ledger movements are complete, accurate, and supported by appropriate accounting rationale.
- Maintain oversight of end-to-end accounting flows from source systems through sub-ledgers into statutory and management reporting outputs.
- Establish and maintain robust controls over ledger postings, adjustments, and period-end activities.
- Drive continuous improvement in ledger governance, control effectiveness, and accounting transparency and ledger reporting.
Accounting Architecture & Taxonomy Ownership
- Own and govern finance taxonomies including:
- Chart of Accounts
- Profit Centres
- Cost Centres
- Units of Account
- Financial Dimensions
- Reporting Hierarchies
- Assess impacts of organisational, regulatory, and business changes on accounting structures.
- Ensure accounting architecture remains scalable, controlled, and aligned with reporting requirements.
- Define and implement accounting rules and mapping logic across finance systems.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Technical Accounting & Accounting Policy
- Translate complex commercial transactions into compliant accounting treatments under IFRS and other reporting frameworks.
- Lead technical accounting assessments for new business initiatives, products, transactions, and strategic projects.
- Lead the preparation and review of technical accounting papers, accounting opinions, and audit support documentation.
- Provide subject matter expertise on accounting standards including IFRS 17, IFRS 9, IFRS 15, and UK GAAP where applicable.
- Obtain stakeholder and audit buy-in for proposed accounting treatments.
Finance Change & Operational Implementation
- Lead the operational implementation of accounting policy and reporting changes.
- Work closely with Technology, Data, Actuarial, and Change teams to ensure accounting requirements are accurately reflected within systems and processes.
- Define business requirements for ledger, reporting, and accounting rule changes.
- Support testing, implementation, and post-deployment validation of finance change initiatives.
- Act as the accounting lead for complex finance transformation programmes.
- Ensure accounting impacts are fully understood across upstream and downstream systems.
Reporting Optimisation & Data Quality
- Enhance reporting outputs generated from the ledger and associated finance systems.
- Improve transparency, drill-down capability, and analytical reporting.
- Identify and remediate data quality, reconciliation, and data lineage issues.
- Develop sustainable solutions to improve reliability of financial and management information.
- Support the evolution of automated and efficient reporting capabilities.
Who You Are
Technical Expertise
- Exceptional understanding of double-entry bookkeeping and general ledger operations.
- Deep knowledge of financial accounting and financial control principles.
- Strong technical accounting capability, ideally including IFRS 17 and IFRS 9.
- Experience designing and operating accounting governance and control frameworks.
- Strong understanding of complex finance system landscapes and accounting data flows.
- Ability to trace, interpret, and challenge complex accounting transactions through multiple systems.
- Strong problem-solving capability with an aptitude for resolving ambiguous accounting and data issues.
- Ability to understand and improve poor data lineage environments.
Communication and Relationship Building
- Strong networking and relationship-building capability.
- Ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills.
- Ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes.
Taking Initiative
- Proactively identifies accounting, control, and data quality issues and takes ownership of their resolution.
- Challenges existing processes and drives opportunities to improve efficiency, transparency, and control effectiveness.
- Independently investigates complex ledger and reconciliation issues, using sound judgement to determine appropriate actions.
- Takes responsibility for delivering work through ambiguity, driving issues to conclusion, and escalating risks appropriately.
- Contributes ideas and solutions that support finance transformation, reporting enhancements, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Demonstrates personal accountability for delivering high-quality outcomes and meeting deadlines.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Developing Self and Others
- Proven people management experience.
- Ability to develop and motivate a high-performing team.
- Strong coaching and mentoring capability.
- Demonstrated ability to lead through change and ambiguity.
Qualifications
- Qualified Accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or equivalent).
- Significant experience in Financial Accounting, Technical Accounting, Financial Control, or Ledger Accounting environments.
- Experience operating within complex finance architectures involving multiple source systems and data feeds.
- Experience producing technical accounting papers and obtaining audit or governance approval.
- Experience implementing accounting change through finance systems and operational processes.
- Experience managing accounting teams and leading cross-functional initiatives.
- Life insurance experience highly desirable, and IFRS 17 experience required.
Benefits of Working at Canada Life
We believe in recognising and rewarding our people, so we offer a competitive salary and benefits package that’s regularly reviewed. As a Canada Life UK colleague, you’ll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive reward package including a generous pension and bonus scheme, along with, income protection, private medical insurance, and life assurance. We have a fantastic number of other benefits and support services as well as regular personal and professional development.
How We Work at Canada Life
Our culture is unique and incredibly important to us. We care about doing the right thing for our people, customers, and community and helping others to build better futures. Our blueprint behaviours shape and influence how we work, and are central to the relationships we have with others. Every day we are encouraged to be more curious, own the outcome, face into things together, and find a way forward.
We want colleagues to have rewarding careers with us, so we invest in the development of our people, technology, and workplaces. That’s why we offer a range of training, flexible working, and opportunities to grow and develop.
Diversity and Inclusion
Building an inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce where everyone can feel they belong and achieve their potential regardless of gender, ethnicity, or any other characteristic is a key commitment for us. We are proud of the progress we’re making in DEI, and we continue for it to be a significant focus.
“At Canada Life, we believe in the power of great people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives coming together to build better futures. Emerging talent is crucial to our growth and creating an environment that continues to inspire us all.” Nick Harding, Chief People Officer, Canada Life UK
We appreciate that everyone has different work and life responsibilities. We’re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements, including part-time, for any of our roles should this be a requirement for you.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location