Commercial Finance Manager

Overview

We have a great opportunity for a Commercial Finance Manager to join our Birmingham office.

This role is required to provide clear and strong financial challenge to the Legal Group(s) and their Group / Region / Team Leaders, and day-to-day collaboration with the Partners and teams in developing and delivering agreed business plans, as well as improving business performance by identifying opportunities and implementing the change successfully.

Responsibilities

This role will be responsible for the business planning, budgeting and financial performance of the allocated legal group(s) ranging from 20 - 30 Partners with revenue between £20m and £50m. The key relationships as a Commercial Finance Manager will be:

• Internal - Commercial Director, CFO, Office Managing Partners (OMPs), Practice Group Leaders (PGLs), Team leaders (TLs), Partners and teams, Business Services teams
• External - Clients, Audit team, Business Consultants, Suppliers, Finance Networks

About you

We are looking for someone who is ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified, with a strong communication style and the ability to present complex financial data and concepts in a clear concise way to non-financial professionals. To this role you will bring a highly developed analytical and financial modelling skills supported with a robust commercial acumen and strong people management and development skills. Within this role you will have relationships across the firm to individuals at all levels and therefore will need to be confident in your ability to influence and persuade challenging colleagues and partners.

For this role it would be desirable but not essential to have the following:

• Exposure to legal sector or professional services firms.
• Use of, and familiarity with, IBM Cognos (or similar planning, budgeting and/or forecasting software tools)

What We Can Offer You

The opportunity to work for a firm which has been recognised as one of the best places to work in the UK and has been ranked by Great Place to Work for 26 consecutive years.

• 25 days annual leave, with the option to buy up to a week's extra annual leave
• Free private medical insurance, and the option to add family members
• Life assurance covering four times your annual salary
• The chance of a three-month sabbatical every five years
• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave schemes
• A range of health and wellbeing programmes
• State of the art offices, in the heart of Birmingham City Centre, with an onsite restaurant
• Opportunities to flourish in your role through training and personal development
• A hybrid approach with office and remote working

Gowling WLG is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment. The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity. This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment.

At Gowling WLG we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work. Our aim is to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.

If you have any queries in relation to this position or would like to see a full job description please contact Meg Astley at

Job Info

• Job Identification 862
• Job Category Finance
• Posting Date 03/12/2026, 03:56 PM
• Job Schedule Full time
• Locations Two Snowhill, Birmingham, B4 6WR, GB