Finance Manager - Stores Trading & Profitability

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.

Role Summary

You’ll lead the finance view of how Dunelm’s stores trade and how profitable they are. As the key business partner to the Stores Executive and Director, you’ll:

Explain store performance against forecast and last year, including how new and refitted stores are trading

• Use exception reporting to turn insight into tangible actions that improve results

• Own the store trading pack and widen our use of ThoughtSpot to replace manual PowerPoint and Excel reporting

• Shape regular store sales forecasts and run the quarterly store sales target-setting process

• Review store profitability every quarter with the Store Costs and Property Costs Finance teams, and recommend how to improve it

• Lead and develop the Stores Trading & Profitability Finance Business Partner

It’s a high-profile role with a real chance to sharpen how we understand, manage and improve store performance.

What you'll be doing

• Lead the finance view of store trading and profitability, acting as the key business partner to the Stores Executive and Director. Provide clear insight and constructive challenge to support decisions that improve store performance.
• Explain store trading performance against forecast and last year, identifying the underlying drivers of variances and providing a clear view of how new and refitted stores are performing.
• Use exception reporting to highlight the stores, trends and performance gaps that need attention. Translate analysis into tangible, prioritised actions so the business can focus its efforts where they will make the greatest difference.
• Own and curate the store trading performance pack, bringing together clear commentary, relevant measures and actionable insight to support focused trading discussions and decision-making.
• Develop how we access and share store performance insight, widening the use of ThoughtSpot to replace manual PowerPoint and Excel reporting with more accessible, repeatable data visualisation and self-service analysis.
• Play a key role in regular store sales forecast updates, using trading trends and insight from business partners to test assumptions and make risks and opportunities clear.
• Lead the quarterly store sales target-setting process, working with the Stores team to translate the sales outlook into clear, evidence-based targets for individual stores.
• Lead quarterly store-level profitability reviews, combining trading insight with input from the Store Costs and Property Costs Finance teams. Explain the drivers of profitability, identify outlier stores and present clear recommendations for improving performance.
• Lead, coach and develop the Finance Business partner for Stores trading (inc. Pausa), 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 analysing trading and profitability performance, explaining the drivers behind variances and translating insight into clear commercial recommendations that improve results.
• The confidence and credibility to challenge senior stakeholders, test assumptions and influence decisions on trading performance, forecasts and targets.
• An improvement mindset, with experience of simplifying and automating reporting, ideally using data visualisation tools such as ThoughtSpot to replace manual PowerPoint and Excel packs.
• 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 forecasting, financial modelling and analytical capability, able to bring together multiple sources of information, identify trends and set robust, evidence based sales targets.
• A bias for action and the drive to turn insight into measurable commercial outcomes, while remaining comfortable with ambiguity and changing priorities.

Behaviours we look for:

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 trading and profitability in depth, probing beyond the headline and using evidence to uncover what’s really driving performance.

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 stores and weekly results to spot trends across the estate, and reimagining how we report and share insight, including through wider use of ThoughtSpot.

Challenging – Providing constructive dissent, testing assumptions and holding stakeholders to account so that forecasts, sales targets and performance actions are robust.

Making It Happen – Cutting through complexity, setting clear ownership and following through so that insight leads to action and store performance improves.

Commercial Judgement – Weighing evidence, risk and materiality to focus attention on the stores and actions that will make the biggest difference to sales and profitability.

Collaborating – Building trusted partnerships across Stores, Retail Operations and Finance, including the Store Costs and Property Costs Finance teams, creating shared ownership of performance and improvement actions.