Job description

Cost Accountants specialise in identifying, recording and reviewing costs within their company or organisation. In a manufacturing firm, for example, a Cost Accountant may be responsible for reporting upon the costs of manufacturing, selling and distributing products.

Cost Accountants play an important role in helping a company understand the costs of doing business in order to aid decision making and formulating strategy.

Cost Accountants must be able to understand in detail how a company functions and what costs are involved in trading.

Typical duties include:

• Drawing up and maintaining budgets for the cost of operations.
• Establishing the fixed costs of operations/production.
• Recording and analysing variances.
• Identifying areas where variable costs can be cut.
• Working closely with non financial managers to foster understanding and control of costs.
• Designing and implementing cost control programmes.
• Cost reporting and analysis for senior managers.

Qualifications

Most Cost Accountants are part or fully qualified (management) accountants.

Salary Snapshot

Recent salaries advertised on TopFinancialJobs (November 2009) include:

• £55-65,000 per annum for a qualified (ACA, CIMA) Senior Infrastructure Cost Analyst working for a banking institution in the City of London.
• £60-90,000 per annum for a Cost Control and Productivity Manager working in the finance division of a Lloyd's managing agency in London.
• £275-285 per day for a qualified Financial Cost Analyst working for multi billion pound transport company in Central London.

Are you a Cost Accountant? Would you like to contribute to our "Day in the Life of..." series? Email us at info@topfinancialjobs.co.uk for more details.