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Head of Finance

  • Full time
  • £48,000
  • Hybrid: Edinburgh
  • Closing 12th April 2026


  • Advertised from 11th March 2026

Role

Our Head of Finance plays a vital role in ensuring the financial sustainability, governance, and operational resilience of Clan Childlaw. This senior management role leads financial strategy, planning, and reporting, providing the insight needed to support strong decision-making and maximise our impact for children and young people in Scotland.

Working closely with the Chief Executive, Senior Leadership Team, and Non-Executive Directors, the postholder delivers clear financial leadership aligned with the organisation’s strategic priorities. The role also provides oversight of payroll, procurement, organisational systems, and operational infrastructure.

The Head of Finance leads and supports our team of administrators and works closely with third party service providers, ensuring the smooth running of office operations and systems that enable our staff team to deliver their work effectively.

This is an exciting opportunity for a strategic finance professional who wants to use their expertise to support meaningful change and strengthen children’s rights.

About you

You are a strategic and collaborative finance leader with a strong commitment to the mission and values of Clan Childlaw, with experience in financial management, planning, and governance, ideally within the charity, legal, or public sector.

Professionally qualified (ACA, ACCA, CIMA) or with equivalent senior experience, you understand charity finance, including restricted funds, SORP reporting, and statutory compliance. You are confident producing management accounts, forecasts, and financial analysis that support effective decision-making.

Comfortable working across both strategic and operational areas, you oversee systems such as payroll, procurement, and financial controls while contributing to long-term financial planning. With strong analytical and communication skills, you translate complex financial information into clear, accessible insight.

An organised and supportive leader, you build positive relationships across teams, strengthen financial understanding across the organisation, and manage competing priorities with integrity, accountability, and a focus on impact.

About Clan Childlaw

Clan wants a Scotland where all children and young people’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. For that to happen, Scotland has to be a place where all children and young people can stand up for their rights. That means children and young people need:

  • Lawyers that are experts in working with children
  • People around them who can enable them to use their rights and amplify their voices
  • To be respected as rights-holders, who are entitled to hold duty-bearers to account if their rights are not fulfilled.

Clan is an award-winning, independent children’s charity that actively supports children and young people to take ownership of their rights. We are the only charity in Scotland that provides free, independent legal representation exclusively for children and young people, which is child-centred by design. Because our lawyers work directly with children and young people whose lives are affected by legal decisions, we bring that unique practice-based knowledge to every aspect of our work. This includes our specialist training, our helpline supporting others who help children to use their voices and their rights, and our work to influence children’s rights respecting changes to practice, policy and law.

What We Do

  • We stand with others who help children use their rights –

Through our membership and training for legal professionals and in legal education we are making being a “children’s lawyer” an accredited legal skill set in Scotland. Our practical training and helpline and support for advocacy in Children’s Hearings provides adults that support children and young people information and guidance that they can use to empower young people to stand up for their rights.

  • We stand out through the excellence of our work –

We want our work to have as much impact as possible. We listen to what children and young people tell us about what they need from lawyers and others who support them to use their rights. We use what we learn to develop and design the services they need and talk about why young people’s rights matter, and why children and young people need lawyers.

  • We stand for change –

We are lawyers for children and young people representing children and young people in court, at Children’s Hearings, and in important meetings working to give them equal opportunity to heard and use their rights. We take cases that make change for individual children and young people and help shape better rights respecting policy and practice. We use our knowledge of the law, and experience as practising lawyers for children and young people, to ask decision makers and lawmakers to change the law and the way the law is used to make sure that children and young people's rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

Our Values

Our values are the principles we uphold in all our work, no matter what. They are the foundation of our workplace culture. Everyone who works at Clan shows our values in all they do and say.

We are supportive: We listen and respond, we provide encouragement and emotional help to children and young people, to others who support young people, and to each other.

We are bold: We are confident and courageous in amplifying the voices of children and young people. We are prepared to take risks when we need to, to defend children and young people’s rights.

We are dynamic: We are always active, always progressing. We are positive, full of energy and new ideas. We ask for change where it is needed.

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

What we can offer you

Clan Childlaw’s mission is very important to us, but our people are important too. We recognise the importance of a good work-life balance and a friendly supportive work environment. We offer:

  • 33 days annual leave (inclusive of public holidays) increasing to 35 after 2 years’ service
  • Auto-enrolment into our pension scheme after 3 months service
  • Flexibility around your working day, with the opportunity to work your hours within the hours of 7am to 7pm around business need, and the option to work from home some of your working week.
  • Access to our employee counselling service.

Learning and development is important to us and our team. We hope it’s important to you too. You will be encouraged to engage in learning and continued professional development.

"I have never worked in such a lovely organisation before! I feel valued, seen and heard as an individual here." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

Application notes

If you’re thinking of applying but would like to have a chat about it first please get in touch at hr@clanchildlaw.org

You can apply via our online portal here

Closing date for application is midnight on Sunday 12 April and we expect interviews to take place on the week commencing 27th April.

Clan Childlaw is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We welcome and encourage applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other protected status.

Please note:To become an employee at Clan Childlaw you must be able to produce evidence of your Right to Work and Membership of the Basic Disclosure is essential for this role and the successful candidate will be required to apply for the scheme and produce an acceptable Basic Disclosure.


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