Cloud FinOps Lead

Cloud FinOps Lead

We are looking for a Cloud FinOps Lead to establish and drive cloud financial management practices across the organisation, with an initial focus on Microsoft Azure.

This is not purely a billing/reporting role. We are looking for someone who can influence architecture, cloud consumption behaviour, budgeting and operational practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish and mature the organisation's Azure FinOps framework, governance model, policies and standards.
• Define cloud cost ownership across subscriptions, applications, projects and business units.
• Implement and manage showback / chargeback models and cloud cost allocation standards.
• Own cloud cost visibility using Microsoft Cost Management, Azure Advisor and other FinOps tools.
• Identify and drive cost optimisation opportunities across compute, storage, databases, containers and PaaS services.
• Manage optimisation strategies such as Azure Reservations, Savings Plans, Azure Hybrid Benefit, rightsizing and non-production scheduling.
• Build and maintain cloud cost optimisation backlogs and track realised savings.
• Support annual and multi-year cloud budgeting, forecasting and financial planning.
• Perform budget-vs-actual and forecast-vs-actual analysis and explain cost variances.
• Develop cost models for cloud migrations, new solutions and architecture changes.
• Create dashboards and reports covering spend, forecasts, cost trends, optimisation opportunities and FinOps KPIs.
• Work closely with architecture and engineering teams to incorporate cost considerations into solution design and cloud provisioning.
• Support migration programmes by assessing the financial impact of moving workloads to Azure.
• Introduce cost-aware controls into Infrastructure as Code and cloud provisioning workflows.
• Present cloud cost insights and recommendations to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Requirements

• Strong hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure and cloud consumption models.
• Experience with Microsoft Cost Management, Azure billing and cloud cost analysis.
• Good understanding of Azure governance, including subscriptions, management groups, resource groups, tagging, Azure Policy and Landing Zones.
• Experience with Azure Reservations, Savings Plans, Azure Hybrid Benefit and Azure Advisor.
• Strong experience in cloud cost optimisation and identifying inefficient or underutilised resources.
• Experience with budgeting, forecasting, financial modelling and variance analysis.
• Strong Excel skills experience with Power BI or similar reporting tools is preferred.
• Ability to analyse cloud usage and billing data and translate it into actionable recommendations.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills and the ability to work across engineering, finance, procurement and business teams.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.

Good to Have

• Experience with Azure Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Customer Agreement or CSP models.
• Knowledge of PowerShell, Python, KQL, Azure Resource Graph or APIs for cost automation and analytics.
• Experience with Terraform, Bicep or Infrastructure as Code.
• Experience embedding FinOps controls into CI/CD and cloud provisioning workflows.
• Knowledge of FinOps Foundation frameworks and practices.
• Exposure to AWS or multi-cloud FinOps.
• FinOps Certified Practitioner / Professional or relevant Microsoft Azure certifications.
• Experience in large enterprise, regulated or complex environments.

Experience

• Typically 5-8+ years of experience across cloud, infrastructure, cloud governance, technology operations or financial management.
• Preferably 2-3+ years of direct Cloud FinOps, cloud cost management or cloud financial governance experience.

Registration No.: R25156061

EA No.: 11C3373