Case studies · Accountancy & finance
Finance roles, filled
Payroll, management accounts, practice administration, bookkeeping and two senior finance appointments. 202 candidates worked, 19 presented, 5 hired — the fastest in 14 days.
Financial Controller
A landmark central London market operator · Retail & leisure property
- Time to fill
- 28 days
- Package
- £40,000–£45,000
- Location
- Central London, hybrid — part-time, 3 days per week
A part-time, three-day Financial Controller is a harder brief than a full-time one. The work is senior and the responsibility does not shrink with the hours, so the field is limited to people who want that shape deliberately rather than as a compromise.
63 candidates were worked, 15 interviewed by us and five presented. Four of those five were interviewed by the client — an unusually high strike rate, and the reason this closed inside a month.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 63
- Internal interview 15
- Presented to client 5
- Client interview 4
- Hired 1
63 candidates worked. Filled in 28 days — the fastest of the nine.
Four of the five candidates presented went to interview. When the shortlist is right, speed follows.
28 days from brief to filled.
Senior Accountant
A mid-sized accountancy and taxation practice · Accountancy practice
- Time to fill
- 93 days
- Package
- £45,000–£60,000, with growth beyond
- Location
- North West England, office-based with flexibility
Practice accountancy is its own market. An accountant from industry rarely transfers cleanly into a practice handling a portfolio of clients, and the practices know it, so the real field is far smaller than the job title suggests.
29 of the 65 were interviewed by us — a deliberately heavy internal stage, because the difference between a practice accountant and an industry one is a conversation, not a keyword.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 65
- Internal interview 29
- Presented to client 5
- Client interview 3
- Hired 1
65 candidates worked, 29 interviewed by us, 5 presented.
Only five of 65 candidates were considered good enough to present. Three were interviewed and one was hired.
93 days, and a hire at the top of the range.
Payroll Lead (Practice Environment)
A family-run accountancy practice with a close-knit team of around eight · Accountancy practice
- Time to fill
- 14 days
- Package
- £28,000–£32,000
- Location
- Surrey, full time
A family-run accountancy practice of around eight people needed a payroll lead to take end-to-end responsibility for roughly 80 client payrolls — monthly, weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly and annual runs, most of them under 20 employees. The practice flagged it as a confidential requirement driven by immediate operational need within the payroll function.
Twenty-five candidates were sourced and screened and fourteen were interviewed by us. Two were presented. One was taken to client interview and hired. Fourteen days from brief to filled — a short search, and a reminder that a confidential brief can move quickly when the shortlist is small and right.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 25
- Internal interview 14
- Presented to client 2
- Client interview 1
- Hired 1
25 candidates worked. Filled in 14 days.
Twenty-five candidates worked down to two presented. One interview, one hire.
14 days from brief to filled.
Management Accountant
A long-established, owner-managed accountancy practice with no external shareholders · Accountancy practice
- Time to fill
- 29 days
- Package
- £34,000–£35,000
- Location
- North London, office based, full time
A long-established, owner-managed accountancy practice in North London, with no external shareholders, wanted someone to own a portfolio of six to eight core clients and prepare draft management accounts across multiple entities. Three to four years in practice, AAT qualified or part-qualified, and ideally living within about twenty miles of the office.
Twenty-six candidates were sourced and screened. Five reached internal interview and four were presented — a tight shortlist for a role with a geographic constraint and fixed office-based hours attached. Two of the four went to client interview, and one was hired, 29 days from brief to filled.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 26
- Internal interview 5
- Presented to client 4
- Client interview 2
- Hired 1
26 candidates worked. Filled in 29 days.
Twenty-six candidates worked to four presented, two taken to client interview, and one hired.
29 days from brief to filled.
Accountancy Practice Administrator
A long-established, owner-managed accountancy practice with no external shareholders · Accountancy practice
- Time to fill
- 29 days
- Package
- £20,000 per annum
- Location
- North London, part time — 3–5 days, 24 hours per week
A long-established, owner-managed accountancy practice in North London needed a part-time administrator, three to five days across 24 hours a week, to be the main point of contact for clients and to run AML checks, client onboarding, HMRC correspondence and Companies House secretarial work. The essential experience asked for was banking or estate agency, rather than accountancy.
That inverts the usual search. Accountancy administrators were not the target; people who had handled clients under pressure in another industry were. Twenty-three candidates were sourced and screened, four were interviewed by us, three were presented, and of the two taken to client interview, one was hired in 29 days.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 23
- Internal interview 4
- Presented to client 3
- Client interview 2
- Hired 1
23 candidates worked. Filled in 29 days.
Three candidates presented, two interviewed, one hired — on a brief that ruled out the obvious CVs.
29 days from brief to filled.
How the fee works
Every role on this page was delivered on the same basis: a fixed fee, agreed before we start, with no percentage of salary attached. The straightforward search and the difficult one cost the client the same.
That is the point of the model. A percentage fee charges you more for hiring a better-paid person and rewards us for the easy search. A fixed fee puts the risk of a long search where it belongs — with us. And if we do not fill the role, you get every penny of your fee back.
Every figure here comes from our own placement records. Clients and placed candidates are not named. Full detail on the model is on our Guaranteed Hire page.
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