Are you highly organised, detail-focused and dedicated to making a difference to young children's lives? Join our early years funding team and play a vital role in ensuring children across Brighton & Hove can access free childcare from the age of nine months.
This role is permanent
Closing Date: Midnight Sunday 6 September 2026
Interviews to be held: Thursday 10 September 2026
There is full information about the role below and attached but, if you would like an informal discussion, please contact Jenny Perrin, Early Years Finance Manager, [email protected]
About the role
Working with around 180 childcare providers across the private, voluntary and independent sectors, you'll be at the heart of administering and managing free childcare funding. From processing payments and conducting audits to maintaining accurate child and provider data you'll help ensure public funding is delivered efficiently, accurately and on time.
This is more than just a finance role. You'll build positive relationships with childcare providers, offering support and guidance on funding processes and helping them navigate our online funding portal. Your patience, professionalism and customer-focused approach will make a real difference to the early years providers we work with every day.
We're looking for someone with excellent attention to detail, strong IT skills (particularly in spreadsheets) and experience using web-based systems. You'll be a confident communicator who enjoys solving problems, supporting others and delivering high-quality work to tight deadlines.
In return, you'll join a high-performing, supportive team with a strong reputation for excellence and a shared commitment to continuous improvement. If you're looking for a rewarding role where your skills can have a tangible impact on families, childcare providers and children across Brighton & Hove we'd love to hear from you.
Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.
Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).
Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
- be connected
- be confident
- be innovative and creative
- be diverse and inclusive
- be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.
How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.
As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.
AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.
We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.
All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.
Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.
We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.
