From Head of Finance to CFO: The Career Path and What the Step Up Really Demands

Plenty of Heads of Finance are already doing much of a CFO’s job. They run the close, own the forecast, manage the auditors, hold the bank relationship day to day and sit in on more leadership meetings than their job description admits. Yet when the CFO or Finance Director seat comes up, inside their own business or elsewhere, they are often passed over for someone with less technical depth and more of a particular kind of history.

That history is rarely about competence. It is about exposure: to a board, to investors, to a transaction, to the moments when the business’s future is being negotiated rather than reported. This article is for ambitious Heads of Finance who want to make the step, and for the CFOs who are trying to develop one as a successor. It sets out what really changes at the top, which gaps hold people back, and how to close them deliberately rather than waiting to be noticed.

What actually changes between Head of Finance and CFO

On paper the two roles can look similar. Both lead the finance function, both answer for the numbers and both are expected to be commercial. The difference is where accountability sits and who you answer to.

A Head of Finance typically reports to a CFO, an FD, a CEO or a managing director. Their job is to make the finance function work: accurate reporting, reliable controls, a credible budget and a team that delivers. Accountancy Capital’s guide to what a Head of Finance does sets out how that scope shifts with the size of the business, from the only qualified accountant in a £5m–£15m company to a leader of a fuller function above £40m.

A CFO or FD carries five things a Head of Finance usually does not:

• A board seat. Often as a statutory director, with the personal duties that come with it. The government’s guidance on being a company director is a sober read for anyone who has only attended board meetings as a presenter.
• Investor and lender relationships. Not just sending the covenant certificate, but owning the conversation when results disappoint.
• Funding. Deciding how much capital the business needs, from where, on what terms, and selling that case.
• Transactions. Acquisitions, disposals, refinancings and, eventually, an exit.
• Strategy. Being a co-author of the plan rather than the person who costs it.

The market prices that difference. On Accountancy Capital’s figures, a Head of Finance in an established SME with £15m–£40m turnover is typically paid £80k–£100k in London and £70k–£86k regionally, while a Finance Director sits at £110k–£170k in London and £95k–£140k regionally. The gap is not paid for better reporting. It is paid for judgement in the moments that carry the most risk.

The experience gaps that hold Heads of Finance back

When a board or a private equity sponsor reviews a shortlist for a CFO role, they are mostly asking one question: has this person been here before? A Head of Finance can be excellent and still have five gaps on their CV. Each one can be closed, but rarely by accident.

1. Board exposure

Presenting the management accounts to the board for fifteen minutes is not the same as sitting at the table for the whole meeting. Boards want to see that a candidate can hold a view under questioning, understands the difference between management and oversight, and knows when to escalate. The FRC’s corporate governance material is a useful frame for how boards are expected to work, even in private companies that do not formally follow the Code.

How to close it: ask to attend full board meetings, not only your agenda item. Offer to write the board paper on a significant decision, not just the finance section. Join an audit or risk committee, as a member or secretary. Outside work, a trustee seat on a charity or school finance committee gives genuine board experience and a different kind of accountability.

2. A funding round or refinancing

Few things separate candidates more clearly. A CFO is expected to have built a model that investors or lenders interrogated, prepared an information pack, handled due diligence questions and negotiated terms. Heads of Finance often support this work but sit one step away from the negotiation.

How to close it: volunteer for the data room, the lender model and the covenant negotiations at the next facility renewal. Even a modest working capital facility or asset finance renewal gives you something specific to discuss. ICAEW’s corporate finance resources are a good way to fill the technical side before you are in the room.

3. An acquisition or disposal

Transactions test everything at once: valuation, due diligence, deal structure, tax, integration and a hard deadline. A CFO candidate who has been through one, even a small bolt-on, can talk about what went wrong in a way that reassures a board. One who has not tends to talk in generalities.

How to close it: ask to own a defined workstream on the next deal, such as financial due diligence responses, the completion accounts or the post-deal integration of finance. Integration is often under-resourced and gives the clearest evidence of operational leadership.

4. Leading through an audit or systems change

Most Heads of Finance have managed an audit. Fewer have led through a difficult one: a first audit after crossing the threshold, a change of auditor, a restatement, or a qualified opinion avoided at the last minute. The same applies to systems. Running an ERP migration from business case to go-live, and keeping the close on time while it happens, is the kind of change leadership that boards remember.

How to close it: put your hand up for the project nobody wants. Own the business case, the vendor selection and the board update, not just the delivery.

5. Building a team

A CFO is judged partly by the people they leave behind them. A Head of Finance who inherited a team and kept it running is in a weaker position than one who redesigned the structure, made the hires and developed someone into their own job. Our earlier piece on what a CFO should delegate first is useful here: if you can show you have already built the layer below you, the step up looks much less risky.

How to close it: make at least one significant hire end to end, and develop a deputy you could credibly name as your successor.

Qualifications and networks that help

A professional qualification is close to a baseline for CFO roles in the UK. ACA, ACCA and CIMA are all accepted; the choice matters less than what you have done with it. ACA tends to carry weight in audit-heavy, PE-backed and listed environments; CIMA’s management accounting focus suits commercial and operational roles. Fellowship, an MBA or a corporate finance qualification can help at the margin, but none of them substitutes for the experience gaps above.

Networks matter more than many finance people like to admit. CFO appointments, particularly in private equity-backed and founder-led businesses, often come through people who have seen a candidate work: a former CEO, a non-executive, a lender, a deal adviser. A few practical habits help:

• Get to know the advisers your business already uses: auditors’ partners, corporate finance teams, the bank’s relationship director. They see a lot of CFO searches.
• Build relationships with non-executive directors. Many sit on several boards and are asked for recommendations.
• Stay in touch with former CEOs and MDs you have worked well with. They are the people most likely to call you when they need a CFO in their next business.
• Be known to a specialist recruiter before you need one, so your experience is understood when the right brief arrives.

Accountancy Capital’s guide to the Head of Finance career path sets out the earlier stages, from Financial Controller through to Head of Finance, and is worth reading alongside this article. For the specific capabilities boards look for at the top, our piece on progressing from Financial Controller to Finance Director covers the commercial and leadership side in more depth.

For CFOs: developing a Head of Finance as your successor

A CFO with a credible internal successor is a stronger CFO. It frees time for investors and strategy, reduces key-person risk in the eyes of the board and, in a PE-backed business, makes the management team more saleable. Yet many CFOs keep their Head of Finance in the engine room because it is efficient.

If you want a successor, design their exposure deliberately:

1. Name it. Tell your Head of Finance, and your CEO, that you are developing them for the top job. Ambiguity breeds caution on both sides.
2. Hand over a board relationship. Let them present a full board paper and take the questions without you answering for them.
3. Give them a transaction workstream. Due diligence, integration or the refinancing model, with real accountability for the outcome.
4. Introduce them to the lenders and investors. Bring them to the quarterly lender meeting, then let them lead one.
5. Let them hire. Their own deputy, with your support but not your veto on every decision.
6. Review it. Agree a twelve-month development plan and check it quarterly, as you would any other business priority.

The CIMA CGMA Competency Framework gives you a neutral structure for that plan, separating technical, business, people and leadership skills so both of you can see where the gaps are.

Be honest, too, about when a successor is not ready. If the business is about to raise money or sell, a board will usually want a CFO who has done it before, and your Head of Finance may be better served by playing a central role in the deal and stepping up afterwards.

Plan the backfill early as well. When your successor steps up, the seat they leave needs filling, and recruiting a Head of Finance to replace them is easier with six months’ notice than six weeks’.

When to move business to make the step

Sometimes the step cannot happen where you are. The CFO is not leaving, the business is not growing, or the board sees you as a safe pair of hands rather than a future director. Signs it may be time to look elsewhere:

• You have asked for board, funding or deal exposure and been refused more than once.
• The CFO above you is settled for the long term and there is no realistic plan for your progression.
• The business has no transactions, funding or significant change ahead, so the experience you need will not arise.
• You are being paid at the top of the Head of Finance range for work that is plainly FD-level.

There are two sensible routes. The first is a CFO or FD role in a smaller business, where your technical depth is a clear asset and you gain the board seat, the bank relationship and, often, the first funding round. The second is a Head of Finance role in a larger, investor-backed or transaction-heavy business, where you gain exposure to the board and to deals while keeping the title. Accountancy Capital’s figures for larger or investor-backed businesses put Head of Finance base pay at £95k–£120k in London and £82k–£106k regionally, so the second route need not mean a pay cut. The Head of Finance salary guide breaks this down by business type.

Interim work is a third, underrated option. Interim Heads of Finance in PE-backed or investor-facing businesses typically earn £450–£600 a day in London and £380–£510 outside London, and a single assignment through a refinancing or sale can give you the transaction story your CV lacks.

An illustrative scenario. A Head of Finance in a £30m manufacturing business has run the function for four years, led an ERP migration and built a team of five. The CFO above is staying. She moves to a smaller, PE-backed business as Head of Finance reporting to a part-time CFO, owns the lender model through a refinancing in her first year, and is appointed FD when the part-time CFO steps back eighteen months later.

How FD Capital Group supports each step

The group is organised around exactly this career line. FD Capital places CFOs and Finance Directors on a permanent, interim and fractional basis, including first FD appointments. Accountancy Capital recruits Heads of Finance and the qualified team beneath them, from £50,000 upwards across the UK. If you are a CFO planning succession, or a business deciding whether it needs an FD or a Head of Finance, the team at Accountancy Capital’s Head of Finance recruitment service will tell you honestly when the brief is really an FD role and pass it to FD Capital. Both are part of FD Capital Group.

Related resources

Further reading for Heads of Finance preparing for the CFO seat, and the CFOs developing them.