Finance Manager - Property & Format

Overview

Home. There’s no place like it.

And there’s no feeling like helping people create the joy of feeling truly at home. At Dunelm, that’s what we do. We’re the UK's number one choice for homewares because we make home life lovelier for our customers. And we’ve crafted a workplace that feels just as welcoming – where you can bring your ideas, be yourself, and feel right at home.

At Dunelm, our Finance team isn’t just about numbers, we’re the powerhouse behind smart decisions, smooth operations, and spotting golden opportunities for growth. We balance the books and manage procurement like pros, but we also dive deep into financial data to uncover patterns, trends, and hidden gems that help steer our business forward.

With an approximately 85-strong team, we’re just the right size - agile enough that no one gets lost in the crowd (or stuck doing the same thing every day), but big enough to offer real opportunities to grow explore new areas and really challenge yourself. If you think finance is all grey suits and spreadsheets - think again. Here, we're making numbers exciting, decisions smarter, and opportunities bigger.

Work your way, together

We’re a hybrid business, which means you’ll have flexibility alongside time together with your team. In this role, you can expect 3 days a week in the office or on-site, helping you stay connected, collaborate and do your best work for our customers.

The Business Finance Team is a team of roughly thirty finance

professionals, who partner with the functions across Dunelm, to

• Produce timely and accurate weekly and monthly reports and

insight to inform trading and operational control and decision

making

• Set targets (in conjunction with business) and provide

independent view of forecasts and trends

• Hold business to account to deliver to targets and manage

risks and opportunities

• Support and challenge tactical and strategic decision making,

including financial appraisal (and post investment appraisal)

• Agitate for optimising profitability and return on investment,

and for best use of our resources

• Use our unique viewpoint to join things up, ‘unblock’ issues

and put simple structure around priorities and actions.

There are many opportunities for development in the team, both

• Progression through Analyst, Business Partner, Finance

Manager, Senior Finance Manager and Head of; and

• Partnering with the varied parts of Dunelm’s business,

including Stores, Supply Chain, Digital, Marketing, Tech,

Commercial and many more!

• In addition to leading your team, you will directly partner with

your Executive and Dunelm Leadership Team partners on

specific projects, initiatives and focus areas, acting as a key

member of their leadership teams. You will work closely with

your colleagues partnering other areas of the business to

support join up of opportunities and issues across the end-to

end operation.

As Property & Format Finance Manager, you’ll be the primary finance

business partner to the Property and Format teams, with a clear focus

on driving profitable growth across Dunelm’s store estate. You’ll play

an integral role in assessing new store and refit opportunities, appraising investment options and payback, and challenging

performance after implementation to ensure expected returns are

delivered. You’ll also lead improvements to how we develop business

cases, assess performance and track investments and returns against

agreed assumptions. Alongside this, you’ll own the end-to-end view of

property costs, providing a clear month-end story and regular, robust

forecast updates. This is a high-profile role with the opportunity to

shape how Dunelm invests across its store estate, raise the quality of

commercial decision-making and build a more rigorous approach to

measuring and delivering returns.

What you'll be doing

• Act as the primary finance business partner to the Property

and Format teams, building trusted relationships and bringing

clear commercial insight and constructive challenge to

decisions.

• Proactively identify opportunities to improve store

profitability, investment returns and property cost efficiency,

using insight to shape the agenda rather than responding only

to requests from the business.

• Support the delivery of profitable growth across the store

estate, with a particular focus on opening new stores and

refitting existing stores.

• Lead the financial appraisal of new store, refit and other

property investment options, clearly assessing costs, benefits,

risks, payback and expected returns.

• Provide robust challenge to the assumptions underpinning

investment proposals and help stakeholders make well

informed choices between options.

• Lead post-implementation performance reviews, comparing

actual results with the approved business case, challenging

underperformance and agreeing actions to improve returns.

• Improve the methodologies, models and governance used to

write business cases, appraise payback and assess investment

performance.

• Establish clear and consistent tracking of investment spend,

benefits and returns against business-case assumptions

throughout the investment lifecycle.

• Undertake quarterly reviews of total store profitability,

identifying trends and using clear insight to drive actions that

improve performance across outlier stores.

• Own the end-to-end financial view of property costs,

understanding the key cost drivers and identifying trends,

risks and opportunities.

• Lead the month-end story for property costs and investments,

ensuring performance is accurately explained and the key

messages and actions are clear.

• Own regular forecast updates for property costs and

investment activity, working with stakeholders to ensure

forecasts are timely, evidence-based and reflect the latest

outlook.

• Lead, coach and develop the Finance Business Partner for

Property & Store Controllables, setting clear priorities and

building capability across the team.

What we'll look for in you

Essential Skills

• Experience of coaching, mentoring or developing others,

with the ability to set clear direction and build capability;

previous formal line-management experience would be

helpful but isn’t essential.

• A strong track record of evaluating investment

opportunities and translating analysis into clear

commercial recommendations that drive profitable

growth.

• The confidence and credibility to challenge senior

stakeholders, test assumptions and influence significant

investment decisions.

• An improvement mindset, with evidence of developing

better models, methodologies, governance, reporting or

decision-making processes.

• Strong analytical judgement, able to work with

incomplete information while making assumptions, risks

and sensitivities transparent.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able

to simplify complex information and build

understanding, commitment and action.

• A strong relationship builder who creates trust across

functions while maintaining independence and

constructive challenge.

• Finance qualified, with broad finance experience and the

credibility to represent the wider Finance function with

stakeholders.

• Strong financial modelling and analytical capability, able

to bring together multiple sources of information,

identify trends and translate analysis into decisions and

action.

• A bias for action and the drive to turn insight into

measurable commercial outcomes, while remaining

comfortable with ambiguity and changing priorities.

Behaviors we look for in you

Communicating – Making complex financial information

easy to understand and using clear, compelling messages to

influence decisions and gain commitment to action.

Curiosity – Seeking to understand store performance and

property economics in depth, probing beyond the first answer and using evidence to uncover risks and

opportunities.

Adapting – Responding positively to changing priorities and

new information, flexing the approach while maintaining

focus on the best commercial outcome.

Thinking Big – Looking beyond individual investments to

understand the long-term opportunity across the store

estate and using internal and external insight to shape

better choices.

Challenging – Providing constructive dissent, testing

assumptions and holding stakeholders to account so that

business cases, forecasts and investment decisions are

robust.

Making It Happen – Cutting through complexity, setting

clear ownership and following through so that insight leads

to action and agreed returns are delivered.

Commercial Judgement – Balancing evidence, risk, payback

and long-term value to recommend where investment will

deliver the strongest profitable growth.

Collaborating – Building trusted partnerships across

Property, Format, Retail and Finance, creating shared

ownership of decisions, performance and improvement

actions.