Senior Tax Manager - Head of Direct Tax

Summary

This is a fantastic opportunity to take a leading role within the M&S Tax team, with end-to-end ownership of the Group’s direct tax affairs.

As Senior Tax Manager, you’ll be our senior technical lead for direct tax, combining deep tax expertise with commercial thinking to ensure we have robust compliance, reporting and governance while identifying opportunities to create sustainable value. You’ll work closely with senior stakeholders across Finance and the wider business, helping M&S navigate complex tax matters, business change and transformation.

To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.

What you’ll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Take end-to-end ownership of direct tax, leading the delivery of high-quality corporation tax compliance, payments, forecasting, tax accounting and external reporting across half year and year-end, while acting as the final reviewer for key technical positions and judgements.
• Be a trusted commercial partner to the business, providing clear and pragmatic direct tax advice on commercial initiatives, transactions and business change, identifying risks and opportunities and translating complex tax considerations into practical recommendations.
• Lead our direct tax risk and governance agenda, supporting delivery of the Group tax strategy, proactively assessing legislative and accounting developments, managing tax authority enquiries and providing clear, decision-ready recommendations to senior leaders when required.
• Play a key role in transformation and continuous improvement, owning the tax input into S/4HANA design, setup and testing while improving direct tax processes, controls, data and systems to reduce manual dependency and create sustainable ways of working.
• Lead across a broad and international tax agenda, providing support on cross-border issues, permanent establishments, withholding tax and transfer pricing, while coaching and quality-assuring the Direct Tax Manager and working with external advisers where appropriate.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• An experienced direct tax professional, ACA, CTA or ACCA qualified, with significant senior-level experience gained within a complex listed or multinational organisation and strong corporation tax knowledge.
• Technically strong in tax accounting and reporting, with hands-on expertise across current and deferred tax provisioning, effective tax rate analysis, journals, disclosures and significant tax judgements.
• A confident leader with strong judgement and ownership, comfortable managing competing priorities, resolving complex issues independently and knowing when to escalate, while coaching and supporting others to deliver at their best.
• Commercially minded and influential, with the credibility to partner with senior Finance and business stakeholders, tax authorities, auditors and advisers, constructively challenging where necessary and turning complex issues into clear, practical solutions.
• Passionate about improving how tax operates, bringing strong analytical and problem-solving skills alongside advanced Excel capability; experience of tax technology, data, controls or financial systems transformation would be particularly valuable.

What’s in it for you?

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone’s welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.