Director of finance & operations

Closing date for applications: 24th November 2025 at 9.00am

Salary: £60,000 - £65,000 per annum (pro rata) dependent on experience

Hours: Full-time (37 hours) although flexible working will be considered including compressed hours, reduced hours (minimum 30 hours) and flexible start and finish times

Interviews: Tuesday 9th December 2025

Join one of the UK's leading contemporary art galleries and drive financial strategy and operations that help ambitious artistic and educational programmes flourish.

The Hepworth Wakefield has welcomed 3 million visitors since opening in May 2011 and is now established as one of the most successful public art galleries in the UK, attracting critical acclaim and audiences from around the world.

We present an ambitious programme of major exhibitions of the best international modern and contemporary art, alongside innovative displays drawn from Wakefield’s growing art collection. Central to our work is our learning programme that engages schools, families, adults and local community groups through inspiring creative learning opportunities. In 2019, we opened The Hepworth Wakefield Garden, designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, to complement our David Chipperfield-designed gallery and provide an inspiring public garden, free for all to enjoy. We have recently been joined by neighbours Tileyard North, who have developed the 19th century mill complex opposite the gallery into a vibrant hub for the creative industries. We are now embarking upon two capital projects to complete our wider waterfront site, including returning our much-loved playground and creating a workshop and yard space for our gardener and her team of volunteers.


Responsibilities

• As a member of the executive team, the director of finance & operations leads on our financial strategies and oversees the financial management and performance of The Hepworth Wakefield (THW) and THW Enterprises Ltd.
• They lead the finance team and ensure accurate reporting of our donated and fundraised income, earned income, Arts Council grant and our Service Concession Agreement income from Wakefield Council, managing our resources to ensure that THW is appropriately and confidently resourced into the future.
• They line manage our highly experienced head of operations and visitor services, providing support to deliver efficiently across visitor services, estates and IT.
• They report quarterly to the Finance Committee, the Board of THW Enterprises Limited, and the THW Trustee Board on financial performance, outlook, investment performance and related matters, and also act as company secretary, ensuring legal compliance and good practice is applied across the organisation.

Knowledge, skills & experience

• We are looking for a senior finance professional with a relevant formal accountancy qualification (ACA, CA, ACCA, ACMA or similar), ideally with experience within a similar organisation.
• You will have a proven creative entrepreneurial outlook, excellent communication skills, and be someone who enjoys working collaboratively to achieve results at a high level as part of a small team.
• You will need a clear understanding of our sector, enjoy relationship-building and leading a team to support them to achieve the organisation’s objectives.
• If you have the vision, skills, experience and leadership qualities we are looking for, then we very much look forward to hearing from you.

We are committed to improving diversity within our organisation and welcome applications from candidates who are under-represented within the arts sector.

Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.