Assistant financial accountant jobs in leeds

What if you could build your accountancy career at one of the UK's leading charities while gaining a fully funded professional qualification? Imagine learning from experienced Financial Accountants while supporting work that enables life-changing impact for people affected by dementia?

About the opportunity

As Trainee Accountant, you'll play an important role in delivering a high-performing, efficient financial accounting operation with partnership and improvement at its core. This is an operational and developmental role, offered with the opportunity of pursuing a formal Level 4 Professional Accounting Technician qualification through an 18-month apprenticeship programme.

You'll be part of our Finance & Assurance directorate, reporting to the Associate Accountant and working alongside our accounting assistants and trainees. Under the guidance of experienced Financial Accountants, you'll learn and deliver the fundamentals of effective accounting. From maintaining accurate financial records and supporting account reconciliations to assisting with audits and preparing financial reports, you'll gain broad experience across core accounting activities while building your technical knowledge and professional confidence.

Your potential qualification pathway

You'll have the opportunity to enrol on a fully funded Level 4 Professional Accounting Technician apprenticeship programme delivered by BPP and studied in allocated time alongside your day job. This 18-month programme offers pathway options including ACCA, AAT, CIMA, or ICAEW, leading to recognised professional diplomas. This programme is delivered through online live lectures, three-monthly coaching sessions and 24/7 access to learning materials via BPP's Virtual Learning Platform.

This is a role where your success is built on strong collaboration across multiple teams. You'll have opportunities to undertake specific improvement projects, identify ways to enhance processes, and support colleagues across the organisation to operate within best practice when it comes to financial accounting.

About you:

You're someone with a willingness to learn and develop on the job, sharing your learnings with colleagues to foster whole-team development. You have an enthusiasm for a career in finance with ideas to help us constantly improve. You have strong numerical and analytical skills, and you're willing to proactively reach across to colleagues in different teams.

You'll need existing experience in a finance or bookkeeping function. This means you're already confident with fundamental bookkeeping principles, maintaining financial records, and working with basic accounting processes. You're comfortable asking questions, reaching across teams to solve problems, and sharing what you learn with colleagues.

You'll have:

- Five GCSEs with grades 9 to 4 (A to C), including English and maths, or equivalent, or relevant work experience (minimum requirement for Level 4 apprenticeship).
- Some existing experience in finance or bookkeeping - you should have completed a Level 3 qualification or have equivalent practical experience demonstrating competence in fundamental accounting principles.
- Willingness to learn and develop on the job, sharing those learnings with colleagues.
- Strong numerical and analytical skills, and awareness of basic financial principles.
- Good grasp of data and how it can be analysed and presented to improve understanding, engagement, and performance.
- Experience of developing basic financial reports.
- Working interest in quality improvement in processes, analysis, communications, or customer service, and experience supporting it.
- Experience of problem-solving, preferably in a financial environment, and willingness to proactively reach across to colleagues in different teams.
- Enthusiasm for a career in finance and ideas to help us constantly improve.
- Some existing experience in a finance or bookkeeping function would be beneficial.

What you’ll focus on:

- Supporting the Financial Accounting team and wider directorate, maintaining accurate financial records and supporting account reconciliations to ensure accuracy and identify discrepancies.
- Supporting auditing processes, liaising with suppliers and third parties, and assisting with the preparation and submission of tax returns.
- Undertaking specific improvement projects across the directorate, for example around optimising internal engagement or directorate records and files.
- Monitoring and responding to daily communications from colleagues, role-modelling brilliant partnership and customer service.
- Data entry, report preparation, and supporting Financial Accountants and Associate Accountants with administrative work, including basic data analysis and presentation.
- Identifying ways to improve processes and making recommendations to senior colleagues.
- Supporting colleagues across the organisation to operate within best practice for financial accounting, making suggestions to improve education and engagement.

Could your enthusiasm for finance and quality improvement help strengthen our Financial Accounting operations? Are you ready to develop your skills while gaining professional qualifications in an environment where learning and collaboration are valued? If you're looking for a role where development meets meaningful purpose, we'd love to hear from you.

Important Dates

Please note: the intended start date for this role will be February 2026.
The deadline for applications is: 23:59 on Sunday 16th November 2025.
Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a timed exercise on W/C 24th November. 
Interviews will then be held via Microsoft Teams on 3rd and 4th of December.

About Alzheimer's Society

Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.

At Alzheimer’s Society, we’re the UK’s leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.

Together with our supporters, we’re working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.

Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer's Society.  

We want everyone we work with, as a colleague, volunteer, supporter, or someone we support, to feel included and that they belong at Alzheimer's Society. 

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee forum and Employee Lived Experience network groups help us promote inclusion and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people. 

Our hiring process

During your recruitment process we want to make sure that you bring your whole self and can be at your best. We are working hard to ensure our recruitment process is as inclusive as possible, so please do inform us of your experience and anything you think we could do better by completing our candidate survey when you apply.  Please also contact Alzheimer’s Society Talent Acquisition Team via [email protected] for application support or any adjustments you might need.

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. We recognise the benefits of AI, but if you're considering using it to submit your application, we encourage you to reflect on the value it truly adds. AI tools often lack the personal touch and authenticity that set candidates apart. We want to hear your unique perspective, experiences, and skills, so we encourage you to showcase them in your own voice.

We try to avoid closing roles early where possible, however if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close earlier than the advertised closing date. Should this occur, we will aim to provide you with at least 48 hours' notice.

We are committed to safer recruitment and ensuring the welfare of those we work with, due to the nature of some of our roles, we might need to carry out a DBS check at the relevant level.

Giving back to you

Our employees work hard every day to make a true difference in people's lives. We are proud to support them with a range of benefits, recognition and many options for working agilely, all contributing to a strong work life balance. We also have various learning programmes to support you in your development and help you grow to realise your potential and shape a career with Alzheimer's Society. 

You can also visit our Working for Us pages, which give you more information about what it’s like to be an employee at the Society.