Automata
FP&A & Commercial Finance Manager
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Salary band: £70,000 – £85,000, depending on experience
Location: London (Angel) – Hybrid – office: 3 days /wk
At Automata, we're on a mission to transform how scientists work by making automation accessible to every lab in the world. We believe that by giving labs the power to automate, we can unlock discoveries that will shape the future of life sciences—from diagnostics and drug discovery to synthetic biology.
But we’re more than just a company disrupting the industry—we're a team of innovators, problem-solvers, and creators passionate about empowering scientists. Our LINQ platform combines hardware and software to streamline workflows, making lab automation fast, flexible, and affordable. This means our customers can focus on groundbreaking research, while we take care of the rest.
Why Work at Automata?
- Impact: Your work will directly contribute to advancements in science and medicine, supporting labs around the globe as they push boundaries in research and innovation.
- Innovation: You’ll be part of a team solving complex problems (seriously, no one else has figured out how to do this yet), using cutting-edge technology (we have robots).
- Growth: We invest in our people. Whether through hands-on experience, professional development, or collaborative projects, you’ll grow both professionally and personally.
- Community: Join a diverse, passionate team that values collaboration (golf on a Thursday, Soccer once a month, movie nights whenever we fancy it).
We’re looking for…
An FP&A & Commercial Finance Manager who will own budgeting, planning, and financial modelling across our multi-entity, multi-product business, reporting to the Finance Director. This is a senior, hands-on role suited to someone who wants to build and own the models and reporting infrastructure that underpin how the business plans, forecasts, and makes decisions. You will run the full Budgeting and Forecasting process end-to-end, partner with functional leads across the business, and produce clear, insightful analysis for regular Business Reviews and Board meetings. You will provide key finance support for strategic decisions across the business, as you’ll be responsible for providing scenario analysis, coupled with commercial insight across projects & company-wide strategy. This is a great opportunity for someone looking to take ownership of a multi-entity FP&A function within a fast-paced, technology-led business.
What you'll do
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Budgeting & Planning
- Own the Models: Build, update and maintain the group’s financial models (Monthly Forecast, Annual Budget, Scenario Planning), ensuring they remain robust, accurate, and scalable as the business grows.
- Support the senior team to understand key planning, budgeting, and forecasting assumption impacts and challenge inputs constructively to improve forecast quality and accountability.
- Budgeting & Forecasting: Run the full Budgeting and Forecasting process end-to-end across the business - timelines, actions and gathering inputs from non-Finance teams.
- Systems: Lead the onboarding of a new FP&A modelling tool into the business, driving its adoption and success across the organisation, including processes, handoffs and ways of working.
Analysis & Insight
- Performance Reporting: Provide clear, insightful analysis and reporting on business financial performance, including margin analysis, to support decision-making across the business.
- Be able to interrogate the changes in the Forecast and provide clear analysis and narrative across both P&L and Cash
- Decision Support for Commercial teams: Working collaboratively with the Sales teams, model and summarise deal economics to support customer negotiations
- With the Finance Director and CFO, conduct scenario analysis, provide decision support and investment cases on wider business decisions.
- Reporting for Key Meetings: Produce clear Financial & KPI charts for key meetings, including weekly Business Reviews, bi-monthly All Hands, and quarterly Board meetings.
What You Bring
Essential
- Prior experience in an FP&A and / or Commercial Finance role, ideally within a multi product (e.g. hardware & software) or technology-led business.
- Qualified or part-qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA) or equivalent strong commercial finance experience.
- Demonstrable experience owning end-to-end budgeting and forecasting processes.
- Strong financial modelling skills, with the ability to build and maintain complex models from scratch.
- Experience producing clear, insightful reporting for senior stakeholders, including Financial & KPI charts for key meetings.
- Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to business partner confidently with functional leads across the business.
- Excellent project and time management skills where you are able to run multiple projects in parallel whilst responding to ad hoc requests.
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
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What Makes You Stand Out
- Clear commercial insight which allows you to analyse & assess new projects, as well as plan operational savings, across a hardware and software business.
- Experience implementing or working within FP&A platforms (e.g. Abacum, Cube, or similar tools).
- Exposure to a scaling, technology, or high-growth business environment.
- Established credibility with leadership teams through sound judgement and decisiveness, constructive challenge, using fact based recommendations and strong advocacy for good financial decision-making.
- Proven ability for strategic thinking and execution skills, effectively connecting financial performance to business priorities and outcomes.
How You’ll Work
- Ownership: Takes full accountability for the numbers and models, rather than waiting for direction.
- Precision: Brings a high level of accuracy and attention to detail, particularly on sensitive or Board-facing data.
- Structure: Runs recurring, multi-entity processes to deadline in an organised way.
- Comfort with ambiguity: Builds and improves models and processes from scratch, rather than needing them fully defined.
- Clear communication: Distils complex analysis into something clear and useful for non-finance and senior stakeholders.
- Driving change: Champions the adoption of new tools and ways of working, not just their technical implementation.
- Commercial curiosity: Looks beyond the numbers to understand the story behind them.
- Discretion: Exercises good judgement when handling sensitive information.
- Adaptability: Stays resilient and flexible in a fast-paced, evolving business environment.
UK Team Benefits:
- 🍎 Vitality Health Insurance
- 👀 Eye Care
- 🚗 Salary Sacrifice - EV
- 🚲 Salary Sacrifice - Bike & Tech
- 🧘🏼♀️ Wellbeing & Support
- ☀️ Wellbeing & Development Allowance
- 💙 Spill & Employee Assistance Programme
- 😊 Additional Leave
- 👵🏼 Pension Scheme
- 🫂 Group Life & Critical Illness cover
We are an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Discrimination of any kind based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status is strictly prohibited.
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