Financial Analyst CV Examples & Writing Guide

A tight CV for a senior FP&A analyst with seven years across healthcare and consumer goods. The person and the companies are invented. Notice that every job states how big the budget or revenue base was, every bullet ends in a pound figure or a decision, and the tools are named where they were used.

Analyst adverts pull hundreds of applicants because the title covers everything from a reporting job to a valuation job. Hiring managers scan for four things in roughly this order.

• Scale. What size of budget, revenue or portfolio did you touch? A £30m budget and a £700m budget are different jobs. If you never name a number, you get read as junior.
• Type of analyst work. FP&A (budget, forecast, variance), corporate development (valuation, M&A), treasury, credit or reporting. Your bullets should use the advert's words, because a treasury team does not want a pure reporting analyst.
• Tool depth. Everyone writes "advanced Excel". Managers look for evidence: the model you built, the SQL you wrote, the planning system (Adaptive, Anaplan, Hyperion) you administered.
• Whether anything happened. The strongest bullets end with a decision: a SKU repriced, headcount moved, a deal passed on.

“I can tell in fifteen seconds whether someone was a report runner or an analyst. Report runners describe the deliverable: 'prepared monthly reporting package.' Analysts describe the finding and what the business did about it. The second person gets the call.”

Three lines at the top, no more. Say the years, the size of what you supported, the two or three things you are actually good at, and one number. Use a career objective only if you have no finance work history yet.

The pattern that works here is: what you built or analysed, on what scale, with what tool, and what changed. Aim for a number in at least three bullets per job.

Keep the list to 10 to 14 items and split it so a screener can find what they need. Only list a system you could be asked about in an interview. "Anaplan" on a CV invites an Anaplan question.

• Analysis: budgeting and forecasting, variance analysis, scenario and sensitivity analysis, margin analysis, capital budgeting (NPV, IRR, payback)
• Modelling: three-statement models, DCF, comparable company analysis, working capital and headcount models
• Excel specifics rather than the word advanced: XLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH, pivot tables, Power Query, scenario manager, model documentation
• Data: SQL (joins, CTEs, window functions), Power BI, Tableau, Alteryx, VBA macros
• Systems: Workday Adaptive Planning, Anaplan, Oracle Hyperion or EPM, SAP FICO, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Market data for investment roles: Bloomberg Terminal, S&P Capital IQ, FactSet, PitchBook
• Accounting foundation: UK GAAP (FRS 102) and IFRS basics, accruals, revenue recognition (IFRS 15), month-end close support
• Communication: monthly business review packs, board papers, variance commentary a non-finance manager can act on

Finance is one of the few fields where a partly finished qualification still helps you, as long as you state it honestly. Never write "CFA" after your name unless you hold the charter.

• A finance, accounting, economics or business degree is the usual entry ticket. Engineering, maths and statistics degrees also get through if the CV shows finance modules or a modelling project.
• Show your degree classification if it is a 2:1 or a First, and your A-level grades while you are applying to graduate schemes. After about three years in work, drop the A-levels.
• An MBA or MSc goes above your undergraduate degree with the specialism named. If you are mid-programme, write "MBA, Finance pathway, expected 2027".
• Short course certificates (Excel, SQL, Power BI, Bloomberg Market Concepts) belong in one compact line, not one line each.

This is the most searched version of the question, and graduates usually make the same mistake: they list modules and stop. Modules prove attendance. Projects, internships and numbers prove you can do the work.

1. 1Header, then a two-line career objective naming the exact role (FP&A analyst, credit analyst, reporting analyst). Vague ambition reads as no direction.
2. 2Education with the graduation month, relevant modules in one line, and your degree classification (plus A-level grades for graduate schemes).
3. 3A projects section, placed above work history. Two or three projects, each with what you built, the data you used and a finding: "Built a 5-year three-statement model and DCF for a listed clothing retailer; the base case implied the shares were about 18% overvalued at the time."
4. 4Internships or any job with money, deadlines or data in it. Retail cash handling, student society treasurer, bookkeeping for a family business, a data assistant role. Quantify all of it.
5. 5A technical skills block with proof levels: "Excel (advanced: Power Query, pivot tables, XLOOKUP)", "SQL (SELECT, joins, aggregations; 40-hour course)", "Power BI (3 dashboards built)".

• One or two pages. Up to about eight years, one page is enough if your numbers are strong; two pages are normal in the UK and expected once you manage analysts, run a full planning cycle for multiple business units, or carry a real deal list.
• Reverse chronological. Functional and skills-first layouts get read as a cover-up in finance, where dates and progression matter.
• Single column, no text boxes, no icons, no charts of your own skill levels. Two-column templates lose the right column in some parsers, and a finance screener does not need a design flourish.
• Send a PDF unless the advert or the recruiter asks for a Word file. Name it firstname-lastname-financial-analyst.pdf.
• Mirror the advert's own words in your skills and bullets: FP&A, variance analysis, rolling forecast, reforecast, driver-based planning, month-end close, three-statement model, ad hoc analysis, business partnering, ERP name, planning tool name.
• Keep the same job titles that appear on your payslips, then add a plain-English version in brackets if your internal title was odd: "Finance Business Partner II (Senior Financial Analyst)".

One habit worth copying: keep a running file of every number you produce, with the date and the source. Six months later you will not have to guess whether the saving was £1.5m or £1.9m. Guessing is how people get caught in interviews.