Financial analysis sits between accounting and commercial decision-making, and the CV has to show both sides. The accounting half is table stakes: you can build a model that balances and reconcile it to the ledger. The commercial half is what gets you hired: you told the business something it did not know, and someone acted on it.
The most persuasive detail is usually forecast accuracy. Saying you produce a rolling forecast is unremarkable; saying your forecast has landed within 3% of actual revenue for six consecutive quarters is a claim only someone doing the job well can make.
This example is written for an analyst with five years in financial planning and analysis at a mid-sized business.
Opens in the editor with this content already filled in, so you can replace it with your own.
Thomas Reed
Financial Analyst · FP&A, Forecasting & Commercial Decision Support
thomas.reed@example.co.uk+44 7700 900431Reading, United Kingdomlinkedin.com/in/example-thomas-reed
Profile
Financial analyst with five years in FP&A supporting a £68m revenue division. Own the rolling 12-month forecast, which has landed within 3% of actual revenue for six consecutive quarters, and rebuilt the product margin model that led to two loss-making lines being repriced. CIMA finalist.
Thameside Industrial Supplies · Reading, United Kingdom
•Own the rolling 12-month forecast for a £68m revenue division across four product lines; the last six quarters have landed within 3% of actual revenue.
•Rebuilt the product margin model to allocate distribution cost by weight rather than revenue, which showed two apparently profitable lines were loss-making after freight; both were repriced the following quarter.
•Ran the annual budget cycle across 14 cost centre owners, moving from emailed spreadsheets to a single Adaptive Planning model and cutting the cycle from nine weeks to five.
•Built the business case for a £2.1m warehouse automation project, including sensitivity analysis on labour cost and volume; the project was approved and is tracking to the modelled payback.
•Present the monthly performance review to the divisional managing director and two sales directors.
Financial AnalystJanuary 2020 – February 2022
Kestrel Foods Ltd · Swindon, United Kingdom
•Produced the weekly cash flow forecast for a business with £30m turnover and seasonal working capital swings.
•Introduced customer-level profitability reporting, which identified £400k of annual revenue being served below cost once delivery frequency was included.
•Automated the monthly management pack in Power BI, reducing preparation from two days to half a day.
Professional Qualifications
CIMA – Strategic level, final case study bookedNovember 2025
CIMA
Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA)May 2021
Corporate Finance Institute
Education
BSc (Hons) EconomicsSeptember 2016 – June 2019
University of Reading · Reading, United Kingdom
Upper Second Class (2:1)
Languages
EnglishNative
GermanB2
Financial Analyst example on the Executive layout. All details are fictional and shown for demonstration only.
What recruiters expect
Before writing anything, it helps to know what the person reading is checking for. In this field that is usually a short, specific list:
The size of the P&L or budget you support, and which business areas.
Forecast accuracy or variance figures, which are the clearest quality signal available.
Systems by name - the ERP, the planning tool, and how much of the work is still in Excel.
Business partnering: who you sit with, what decisions they bring you, and how often.
Recommended CV structure
This is the running order the example uses. It is a starting point rather than a rule, but the order reflects what tends to be read first in this profession.
Profile — Three or four lines positioning you for the role.
Core Skills — Grouped skills, for example "Languages" and "Tooling".
Professional Experience — Paid roles, in reverse chronological order.
Professional Qualifications — Completed certifications with the issuing body.
Education — Degrees, diplomas and school-leaving qualifications.
Languages — Spoken languages with CEFR levels.
Sections worth adding
Projects — Use for system implementations, pricing reviews or acquisition support.
Continuing Professional Development — Relevant while working towards CIMA, ACCA or CFA.
Skills worth including
Grouped rather than listed in one block. Grouping makes a long list readable and shows that you can tell the difference between the things you use daily and the things you have touched.
Planning & Analysis
Budgeting · Rolling forecasts · Driver-based planning · Variance analysis · Scenario and sensitivity analysis
Beyond the technical list: Business partnering, Presenting to non-finance leadership, Challenging assumptions, Managing a planning cycle to deadline. These belong inside your experience bullets, demonstrated, rather than in a list of adjectives.
Example professional summary
Three or four lines, positioned for the role rather than describing your personality. Two versions you can adapt:
Financial analyst with five years in FP&A supporting a £68m revenue division. Own the rolling forecast, which has landed within 3% of actual revenue for six consecutive quarters, and rebuilt the product margin model that led to two loss-making lines being repriced. CIMA finalist.
Commercial finance analyst working directly with sales and operations leadership. Comfortable building the model, challenging the assumptions behind it, and presenting the answer to people who do not want a spreadsheet.
Writing your experience
The difference between a CV that gets a call and one that does not is almost always in the bullet points. Each pair below shows a real rewrite of the kind of line that appears on most CVs in this field.
Weak
Prepared monthly forecasts and budgets.
Stronger
Own the rolling 12-month forecast for a £68m revenue division across four product lines; the last six quarters have landed within 3% of actual revenue.
Scope plus an accuracy record, which is the strongest available evidence of competence in this field.
Weak
Analysed product profitability.
Stronger
Rebuilt the product margin model to allocate distribution cost by weight rather than by revenue, which showed two apparently profitable lines were loss-making after freight; both were repriced the following quarter.
A methodological change that overturned an assumption and led to a decision.
Weak
Supported the budgeting process.
Stronger
Ran the annual budget cycle across 14 cost centre owners, moving from emailed spreadsheets to a single Adaptive Planning model and cutting the cycle from nine weeks to five.
Shows process ownership and a measurable improvement in the cycle itself.
Taken from the example
The sample CV for this profession is fully written. A few sections from it, so you can see the level of specificity that works:
Own the rolling 12-month forecast for a £68m revenue division across four product lines; the last six quarters have landed within 3% of actual revenue.
Rebuilt the product margin model to allocate distribution cost by weight rather than revenue, which showed two apparently profitable lines were loss-making after freight; both were repriced the following quarter.
Ran the annual budget cycle across 14 cost centre owners, moving from emailed spreadsheets to a single Adaptive Planning model and cutting the cycle from nine weeks to five.
Built the business case for a £2.1m warehouse automation project, including sensitivity analysis on labour cost and volume; the project was approved and is tracking to the modelled payback.
Education
BSc (Hons) Economics, University of Reading — Upper Second Class (2:1)
Certifications and registration
CIMA – Strategic level, final case study booked — CIMA
Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA) — Corporate Finance Institute
Common mistakes
Describing the cycle instead of the insight
"Prepared monthly forecasts" describes a calendar. What did the forecast reveal, and what changed as a result?
No accuracy measure
Forecast accuracy is the most comparable metric in FP&A and almost nobody puts it on their CV.
Model complexity as a virtue
A model nobody else can maintain is a risk. Reviewers value models that are documented, auditable and handed over successfully.
Missing the commercial audience
FP&A is a partnering role. If your CV never mentions a non-finance stakeholder, it reads as a reporting job.
ATS considerations
Applicant tracking systems behave differently by sector, and generic advice is often wrong for a given field. These points are specific to financial analyst applications:
Write "financial planning and analysis (FP&A)" in full once so both forms match.
Include "financial modelling" and "financial modeling" is unnecessary - use the local spelling, but do include "modelling" as a word rather than only "models".
Name the planning system. "Anaplan" and "Adaptive Planning" are hard filters at organisations that run them.
Keep "Excel" on the CV explicitly, with the specific functions rather than the word "advanced".
The Minimal ATS layout is built for this, and the ATS guide covers what parsers do to a file in more detail.
Questions about financial analyst CVs
Do I need CIMA, ACCA or CFA?
CIMA is the most natural fit for FP&A in industry, ACCA is widely accepted, and CFA is aimed at investment rather than corporate finance. Part-qualified status is worth stating explicitly.
How do I show Excel skill credibly?
Name what you build. "Three-statement model with scenario switches" and "Power Query refresh replacing four hours of manual consolidation" both say more than "advanced Excel".
Is SQL expected?
Increasingly, yes, particularly where the planning tool sits on a data warehouse. Even basic query skill is worth listing because so few finance CVs have it.
What if my forecasts have not been accurate?
Then use a different measure: cycle time, the number of cost centre owners you support, or a decision your analysis changed. Do not invent an accuracy figure that would not survive a reference check.