VAT manager

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Group Tax & Customs team, with a specific focus on ensuring our indirect tax obligations are met. The team are responsible for managing the Group’s worldwide tax affairs and the successful candidate will be part of a small team of tax professionals based in the UK.

The role reports to the Head of VAT and will be responsible for ensuring that the Group meets its indirect tax obligations, advising on VAT matters primarily in respect of the UK entities within the Group, as well as overseeing its VAT compliance requirements. The role will work closely with key stakeholders within Group Business Services, as well as the finance and business teams across each of the divisions.

Why Rolls-Royce?

Rolls-Royce is one of the most enduring and iconic brands in the world and has been at the forefront of innovation for over a century. We design, build and service systems that provide critical power to customers where safety and reliability are paramount.

We are proud to be a force for progress, powering, protecting, and connecting people everywhere.

We want to ensure that the excellence and ingenuity that has shaped our history continues into our future, and we need people like you to come and join us on this journey.

We’ll provide an environment of caring and belonging where you can be yourself. An inclusive, innovative culture that invests in you, gives you access to an incredible breadth and depth of opportunities where you can grow your career and make a difference.

What we offer:

We offer excellent development opportunities, a competitive salary, and exceptional benefits. These include bonus, employee support assistance and employee discounts.

What you will be doing:

• Proactive member of the UK Tax & Customs team, keeping up to date with legislation changes and developments to provide specialist knowledge and guidance throughout the UK entities as a trusted business partner.
• Role model the Rolls-Royce behaviours and leadership expectations. Play a key role in the leadership of the tax team contributing to the development of more junior members of the UK team to ensure succession in the future, mentoring and supporting them in their understanding of VAT. Work with the overseas teams as needed.
• Responsible for VAT reporting and compliance primarily in respect of the UK entities within the Group
• Review of Group VAT returns for a variety of jurisdictions as prepared by other members of the Tax team to ensure accuracy.
• Development and delivery of VAT awareness communications and more in-depth specific training as required throughout the business.
• Drive efficiencies and ongoing improvement initiatives.
• Act as primary contact for external auditors’ queries and manage relationships with external advisers.
• Proactively manage all HMRC related routine queries and more in-depth audit work.
• Support wider projects and initiatives as required by the Head of VAT.
• Continuously improve the Group’s risk management and control processes to manage compliance risk, ensuring that the Group has robust and effective governance, processes and controls in place and is compliant with all relevant laws and regulations.

Who we’re looking for

At Rolls-Royce we put safety first, do the right thing, keep it simple and make a difference. These principles form the behaviours that guide us and are an essential component of our assessment process. They are the fundamental qualities that we seek for all roles. For this role you will need to demonstrate understanding of the appliable health and safety standards and we are looking for someone who is/has:

This is a leadership role and as such we expect the successful individual to be able to exhibit many of our Leadership Expectations, which are:

One Enterprise Mindset, One Team

• Lead across the ecosystem, setting and communicating clear direction and expectations
• Embrace one Rolls-Royce, one team mindset
• Believe in the extraordinary! Be passionate about the success of the business and hungry for success
• Encourage open and respectful debate and inclusion of diverse perspectives

Adaptiveness & Resilience

• Adapt to change and pivot strategies to ensure timely and effective execution in a dynamic environment
• Increase resilience, build flexible and agile structure and processes

Holistic Thinking, Simplification & Decisiveness

• Connect the dots and see the bigger picture
• Create fit for purpose solutions and reduce complexity
• Make fast and well-informed decisions leveraging world class benchmarks where it matters most

Execution & Business Impact

• Build high trust and mobilize teams through purpose, focus and strategic alignment
• Optimize performance and deliver consistent results
• Manage risks and take timely interventions
• Create a systemic rhythm in the organization to enable our strategic progress ambition

Operational Effectiveness

• Prioritize dynamically (applying intensity, pace and rigour where it matters the most)
• Build proactive responsive capabilities

Build Talent & Capabilities

• Apply high-performance focus across business and people, provide regular feedback and have zero tolerance for mediocrity
• Increase curiosity and learning agility, future proof capabilities by upskilling talent through hiring, reskilling, and talent mobility

In addition, for this role, we are looking for someone who has:

• Accounting or Tax qualifications with extensive specialist UK VAT experience.
• Good knowledge of SAP including configuration and tax determination logic
• Experience of using Thomson Reuters OneSource Indirect Tax Compliance product is advantageous.
• Excellent Excel and analytical skills are essential as well as significant attention to detail.
• Excellent organisational skills and be able to work multiple tight deadlines concurrently.
• Strong communication skills including ability to explain complex tax issues to non-tax specialists and non-native English speakers.

We are an equal opportunities employer. We’re committed to developing a diverse workforce and an inclusive working environment. We believe that people from different backgrounds and cultures give us different perspectives. And the more perspectives we have, the more successful we’ll be. By building a culture of respect and appreciation, we give everyone who works here the opportunity to realise their full potential.

We welcome applications from people with a refugee background.

You can learn more about our global Inclusion strategy at Our people | Rolls-Royce