What finance roles actually pay in Essex and Hertfordshire right now

If you are setting a salary for a finance role this quarter, you are probably working from one of three things: what you paid last time, what a job board says, or what your MD thinks the job is worth. All three will mislead you, and the first is the most dangerous because it feels like evidence.

Here is what the roles we recruit most across Essex and Hertfordshire are paying. More useful than the numbers themselves is what moves a candidate from the bottom of a band to the top.

Before the numbers: three things that will skew them

These bands cover both counties, so your catchment sits somewhere inside them. We have deliberately not split Essex from Hertfordshire, because the county line is not where the market divides. The real split is proximity to London. Brentwood sits inside the Elizabeth line's effective travel-to-work area, which means you are benchmarking against employers who benchmark against London. Colchester is not, and does not. The same gap exists in Hertfordshire between St Albans, twenty minutes from St Pancras, and Stevenage or Bishop's Stortford. If you are hiring in a London-fringe town, expect to sit in the upper half of these ranges. Further out, the lower half will usually hold.

Sector moves a band more than seniority does. A financial controller in a PE-backed business with covenant reporting and an investor deck is doing a materially different job from a financial controller in a stable family-owned manufacturer of the same turnover. Both are correctly titled. They should not be paid the same, and the gap is frequently wider than the gap between adjacent job titles.

Benchmarks age faster than you think. Average earnings across Great Britain grew 4.1% including bonuses and 3.5% excluding them on the latest ONS figures. That is modest by recent standards, but compounded over two years it is enough to leave a 2024 benchmark meaningfully adrift: usually low enough to lose you a candidate at offer stage, but not obviously wrong enough for anyone to question it.

Non Qualified Level

What moves someone to the top of these bands: system experience that matches yours, genuine ownership of a ledger rather than processing within one, and, for credit control, evidence of having actually improved a DSO figure rather than maintained one.

Where employers most often get this wrong: treating these as commodity hires and pitching at the bottom of the band. In a high-volume, working-capital-constrained business, the difference between an adequate credit controller and a good one is worth many multiples of the salary gap between them. Both counties carry significant logistics and distribution employment, such as the Thames Freeport corridor in South Essex and the Maylands district in Hemel Hempstead, where this is particularly true.

Payroll deserves a separate note. It has the widest range in this table for its level, and the reason is risk rather than complexity. A payroll manager who can carry compliance properly, and who documents what they do, is materially more valuable than one whose knowledge sits entirely in their own head. Most businesses only discover that distinction when the person resigns.

Qualified level

A word of caution on titles at this level: they are used inconsistently between businesses, and Finance Manager in particular covers an unusually wide span of scope. In one business it is a step above management accountant; in another it is effectively a financial controller role with a different name. Read the band alongside the responsibilities you are actually assigning rather than the title you plan to advertise.

What moves someone to the top: commercial exposure. Consistently, the candidates commanding the upper end are the ones who can hold a conversation with a budget holder rather than present variances to them. Sector-specific technical experience also carries a premium in both counties, whether that is construction WIP and CIS, grant and R&D reporting in life sciences, or production accounting in film and TV, because the pools are genuinely small.

Where employers most often get this wrong: buying a title rather than a scope. A business that needs a management accountant and hires a financial controller ends up paying a premium for someone who leaves within a year because the job was too small. The reverse costs less on day one and considerably more over eighteen months.

The senior roles at the foot of this table carry the widest ranges we recruit, and the range is real rather than a hedge. The variables that matter most are turnover, ownership structure, whether the role carries board responsibility or reports to someone who does, and whether the business is stable or in transition. A first-time FD in a £15m owner-managed business and an FD running a finance function through a systems change and a refinancing are different appointments at different prices.

How to use these numbers

Pick your band before you advertise, not after you meet someone. The most expensive salary conversation is the one that happens at offer stage, when a candidate you want turns out to sit above the range you had in mind. Deciding what the top of your band is, and what would justify paying it, before the advert goes live prevents that.

Advertise the range. Roles advertised as "competitive" or "DOE" generate fewer applications and worse ones. Candidates read an absent salary as a low one.

If you cannot match the band, be specific about what you offer instead. Scope, flexibility and progression genuinely do move candidates in these counties, particularly those who have already done the London commute and do not want to go back. What does not work is offering below market and hoping the shorter commute closes the gap on its own.

These bands are drawn from the Huntress Accounting & Finance Salary & Benefits Guide 2026, built on survey data from finance professionals across UK regions, industries and experience levels. They are broad guides; the right number for a specific role depends on sector, size and complexity.

If you would like a benchmark for a particular role rather than a range for a job title, our Accountancy & Finance team covering Essex and Hertfordshire will put one together for you. Just get in touch with Kate Ellis.

Wage data: ONS Labour Market Overview, August 2026.