Head of Personal Finance

For too long in the UK, the topic of personal finance has either been treated as taboo, or a conversation which is reserved for the ultra-wealthy. We're looking for a Head of Personal Finance who can change that. Someone who can take the building blocks of financial freedom; like pensions, mortgages, tax and investing, and make them feel like tools which can be managed, to build a future worth getting excited about. 

Someone who can strip out the jargon, provide a fresh take, and entice people to act. 

This is the role that gives Octopus Money a voice. Internally, you'll own the content that helps customers understand their options and take the next step. Externally, you'll be the person journalists call when the Budget lands or rates move. Both halves matter equally, and both are measured.

How you would interact with the business

You'll sit in the marketing and comms team, and benefit from all of their support and expertise. The beauty of this role is that you will also work hand-in-hand with the customer facing teams. That means working with regulated advisers to turn their expertise into things customers can use, and working with marketing to get it in front of the right people at the right moment.

You'll also be close to the leadership team. When we need a view on a policy change, a product rule, or what customers are worried about this month, you're the person we ask.

Your role

This role is for someone who wants both the platform and the accountability: a public profile, and a number to move. And while no two days are the same, your week might look something like:

• Monday: Writing an email and blog post explaining the major themes which have impacted portfolio performance over the past month
• Tuesday: Recording 8 short, snappy, 30 second clips which will feature in the Octopus Money app, helping to explain the “golden rules of investing”.
• Wednesday: Speaking with a journalist for an upcoming piece being written on the pros and cons of Premium Bonds.
• Thursday: Presenting a live webinar to 500 customers, explaining the changes to IHT rules coming in April 2027, and what techniques are available to help mitigate the impacts. 
• Friday: Planning content for the upcoming quarter, tied to business objectives and senior leadership focuses

By the end of your first six months, you’ll have:

• Set and launched the content strategy. What we say, where we say it, and how we know it worked. Every piece we publish traced back to a business objective.
• Written regular columns for our newsletter partnerships. Recurring slots, fixed deadlines, a big audience that isn't ours yet, and your name on it.
• Built and delivered a webinar programme. A repeatable suite of sessions for both clients and customers — the kind of thing where 500 people turn up and expect to leave knowing something they didn't. 
• Led the engagement strategy for our wealth planning clients. Advised customers expect more depth and more timeliness than a general audience. You'll own what they hear from us, and how often.
• Become the voice of Octopus Money in the press. Building the journalist relationships from the ground up, being the named quote, and becoming the person the personal finance desks call when a story breaks.

Team scope

This starts as a hands-on role. You'll be writing, presenting and doing the interviews yourself, working alongside an 11-strong marketing team. As the content function proves itself there's a clear path to building a small team around you — we'd rather hire someone who can do the work brilliantly now and grow into leading it, than someone who needs a team before they can start.

Ideal candidates will have

• Deep, current knowledge of UK personal finance — pensions, ISAs, mortgages, income tax, CGT and IHT — enough to hold your own with an adviser and explain it to someone who's never invested
• A track record of producing content that changed behaviour, not just content that got read
• Experience as a media spokesperson in print and/or broadcast, or clear evidence you could become one quickly
• Genuinely excellent writing. This is the core craft of the role
• Comfort operating in a regulated environment, and instinct for the line between guidance and advice
• Backgrounds that tend to work well: financial journalism, personal finance content at a wealth manager, platform or fintech, or a regulated adviser who can write
• Nice to have: relevant qualifications such as the CII Diploma or CISI equivalent

What we expect from you

• Energy and curiosity. This isn't the role for you if you lack initiative and a passion for speaking up and putting your views out into the world
• Speed and judgement. When the Chancellor sits down, we want something useful published the same day
• A bias for clarity over cleverness. If a customer has to read it twice, it isn't finished
• Confidence in front of a camera, a webinar audience and a journalist on deadline
• A collaborative mindset; happy to sit down with anyone in the business, from an adviser to the CEO

About Octopus Money

Octopus Money is an investing business built on real, human 1-to-1 support, whenever life calls for it. We started with a simple belief: having someone in your corner to talk about your money gives you the best shot at the future you actually want.

We're here for the moments when money gets complicated, and the moments when it's time to plan ahead. Whether you've got a little or a lot, straightforward goals or a tangled mix of them, we've got a solution: investing, financial planning, coaching, mortgages, protection, retirement planning and wealth and legacy planning.

Our mission is to be the most recommended financial services business in the UK.

Success looks like this at Octopus Money

• You can handle ambiguity. You're comfortable using judgement to create structure and applying first principle thinking
• You're someone who 'chases the ball', rather than just hoping others pick it up. We look for determination, resilience and a healthy dose of optimism
• You thrive in a fast-paced environment. You're open to course correct when needed, and challenge yourself and others to do better

The hiring process

• Fill out a few questions and submit a video example of your work
• A 45-minute competency-based video interview with Melanie, our Head of Marketing
• An in-person copywriting task and “meet the team” session of around 60 minutes 
• A conversation with Dan, our CEO

Four stages is more than we'd usually ask for, and we know it’s a lot of time and effort on your part. The reason is simple: this role is public-facing. You'll be on camera, in print and on the phone to journalists, so we need to see how you present and how you write, neither of which a CV can do well. 

You'll get feedback after every stage if we meet, whether or not you go through. Our average process takes around four weeks and we'll always work around your availability.

What's in it for you

Base salary: £80,000 - £100,000 (depending on experience) + benefits

Where we work

We believe in the power of in-person collaboration three days a week in our Holborn office (every Tuesday through Thursday), but we also know people need flexibility. We give you 4 weeks a year to work away from the office when you need to; whether you want to work abroad, or just need to be at home.

How we work

Culture starts with the right behaviours at the top. Our leaders are hands on, get stuck in, and see no job as too small. Across the business, we try to strip out unnecessary process wherever we can: people don’t need to join meetings where they’re not needed, and we challenge our teams to regularly question what’s draining their time. We talk openly about ‘stumbles of the week’, and celebrate each other with Inkspiration awards.

We want everyone in our business to see the value of their personal impact - that’s why we don’t cap individual bonuses. And, we’re an employee owned business, with a Share Incentive Plan.

Our values are:

• Make every conversation matter: We care deeply about how we make customers and colleagues feel - on every call, email, screen and event. It won't always be perfect, but we'll always work harder to keep making it better.
• Move with urgency and focus: We’re impatient to make remarkable things. We focus on what matters most, make fast initial progress and then iterate forward.
• Own it: We take full ownership of our work – from the smallest detail to the final outcome. We have the courage to break new ground, to hold ourselves and each other accountable, to tackle challenges head-on and find solutions that make a lasting impact.

In addition to our benefits, we’re sociable, and encourage people to join us for get togethers: monthly breakfasts, pizza and games evenings, summer sports games, and weekly mixed football and netball. 

We don’t just talk about AI, we think hard about how to enable and train our people to make the most of it - re-thinking about what they do, and how to make AI part of their operating model, rather than a bolt-on. That’s why we encourage people to spend dedicated time every Friday afternoon, dedicated to their own AI upskilling on Claude supported by regular lunch-and-learns and information sharing.