The Rise of FP&A: Why Organisations Are Competing for This Skillset

The Rise of FP&A: Why Organisations Are Competing for This Skillset

Everyone suddenly wants FP&A. It’s not a mystery. Finance teams have realised they can’t keep running the business on last quarter’s numbers and a spreadsheet last updated “sometime in 2021”. Boards want answers in real time; investors want visibility; CEOs want someone who can explain why costs keep climbing even when revenue doesn’t.

So FP&A has become the grown-up in the room. And now everyone’s trying to hire them at once.

Businesses finally want insight, not just reporting

For years, finance was rewarded for accuracy and punished for being too opinionated. That era is over.
Boards have decided they actually want finance to have an opinion — preferably one backed by numbers, foresight, and a scenario plan that doesn’t collapse under scrutiny.

This is exactly where FP&A thrives.
They sit between the data and the decision, translating one into the other. In unstable markets, that skill isn’t nice to have; it’s survival.

FP&A is the only team that can answer the questions leadership keeps asking

“What’s happening next quarter?”
“What if interest rates don’t behave?”
“Why do we keep missing the forecast?”

These aren’t questions a standard month-end pack can answer.
They’re FP&A questions — and the organisations growing fastest are the ones treating this function as a strategic engine, not a cost centre.

Cash is tight, decisions are quicker, and mistakes are expensive

When money was cheap, businesses were comfortable drifting.
Not anymore.
Now every investment has to justify itself, and every cost line is under the microscope.

Companies need people who can:

• stress-test decisions

• evaluate scenarios

• support budgeting with actual logic

• highlight what matters, not just what changed

FP&A does this without theatrics. Just clarity.

Growth companies can’t scale without proper planning

In the UK mid-market especially, leadership teams are discovering something obvious:

You can’t scale on intuition.
You scale on visibility.

FP&A is the function that connects commercial plans with operational realities. When they do their job well, the entire organisation feels steadier. When they’re missing, decisions get slower, riskier, and occasionally chaotic.

Hence the sudden hiring frenzy.

The supply of FP&A professionals hasn’t caught up

Here’s the problem:
Everyone wants FP&A talent, and the pipeline simply isn’t big enough.

Traditional finance career paths pushed people into statutory, management accounting, or audit. Only a fraction moved toward planning, modelling, or strategy.
Now the market is being forced to correct — and it’s happening quickly.

Which means competition is fierce.
Not because employers are being picky, but because there aren’t enough candidates with the right blend of:

• commercial instinct

• modelling capability

• communication skills

• speed

• resilience

You can train technical ability. Commercial judgement takes years.

FP&A is where finance careers with momentum are heading

The smartest candidates know exactly where the industry is going.
They’re moving into FP&A because:

• It’s closer to the boardroom

• It’s where the strategic conversations happen

• It’s becoming the preferred route to future Finance Director roles

It’s no surprise that ambitious talent is gravitating toward planning roles — and organisations are trying to catch them before their competitors do.

The bottom line

FP&A is no longer a niche part of finance.
It’s the core of modern decision-making.
And as long as the UK market stays unpredictable — which it will — demand won’t slow down.

The companies who win this race will be the ones who act early, move quickly, and don’t assume FP&A talent is sitting around waiting.

They’re not.