Manager-FinOps

The FinOps Manager is responsible for driving financial accountability, cost optimisation, and value realisation across cloud and technology consumption. This role acts as the strategic bridge between engineering, finance, procurement, and product teams, embedding FinOps principles and ensuring that cloud investment decisions are transparent, data‑driven, and aligned to business strategy.
The FinOps Lead owns the FinOps operating model, leads cultural adoption, and provides senior‑level insight to optimise spend across multi‑cloud and hybrid hosting environments. This role will transition the organisation from third- party dependency to a self-sustaining, engineering-led cost ownership model, where cost is actively managed as part of day-to-day technology delivery. This role is expected to actively challenge and influence engineering and platform teams to ensure cost is effectively managed, with full support from senior technology leadership.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the organisation’s FinOps framework, processes, and governance model.
• Lead the adoption of FinOps principles across engineering, product, and finance teams.
• Establish KPIs, maturity assessments, and continuous improvement plans.
• Oversee analysis of cloud usage, spend patterns, and unit economics across all cloud providers and on‑prem hosting.
• Identify and prioritise optimisation opportunities (rightsizing, reservations, architectural trade‑offs, waste elimination).
• Partner with engineering teams to embed cost‑efficient design and operational practices.
• Own cloud and consumption‑based budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis.
• Ensure accurate cost allocation, show back/charge back, and alignment with financial policies. Provide scenario modelling and financial insight to support investment decisions.
• Act as the senior liaison between Technology, Finance, Procurement, and Product.
• Facilitate regular optimisation reviews, forecast reviews, and executive reporting.
• Champion a culture of shared accountability for cloud spend.
• Lead commercial optimisation with cloud providers and SaaS vendors.
• Support contract negotiations, discount programmes, and enterprise agreements.
• Evaluate and manage FinOps tooling and automation platforms.
• Produce clear, actionable reporting for senior leadership and governance forums.
• Communicate trends, risks, and opportunities in a way that influences decision‑making.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Typically 5–10+ years in FinOps, cloud cost optimisation, cloud engineering, technology finance, or IT operations.
• Demonstrable experience leading a FinOps practice, not just participating in one.
• Hands‑on experience managing cloud spend at scale (often £5m+ annual cloud budgets).
• Exposure to multi‑cloud or hybrid hosting environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, on‑prem).
• Experience influencing engineering, finance, procurement, and product teams.
• Leading governance forums, optimisation reviews, and cultural adoption programmes.
• Strong background in budgeting, forecasting, cost allocation, and variance analysis.
• Experience with vendor negotiations, enterprise agreements, and commercial optimisation
• Skilled in analysing large datasets, building financial models, and using BI tools.
• Experience with cloud cost management platforms (native or third‑party).
• Experience in Regulated or Complex Organisations (Highly Valued)
• Familiarity with frameworks such as ISO 27001, FCA
• Ability to operate within structured governance and compliance environments.