Finance Unilever Future Leaders

Unilever Future Leaders Programme

Our Future Leaders Programme will ignite the leader in you. This unique programme is designed to develop Unilever’s Future Leaders (UFLs) by providing collaborative and purposeful opportunities that accelerate their readiness to take on managerial roles.

The Unilever Future Leaders Program (UFLP) is a global initiative enabling Unilever to build a strong talent pipeline that will aid our business growth.

In the UK, our UFLP is a 36-month rotational development program for which we recruit top-performing undergraduate talent who demonstrate the potential to become managers within our business. It’s designed to grow you into a manager, through hands-on learning alongside world-class experts.

You’ll be hired into a finance function and further develop leadership skills by working on live projects which offer you all the experience you need to become ready for your first management role. At the heart of it, it’s about developing people who can lead today and tomorrow.

From day one, you’ll be embedded in a finance team and trusted with meaningful work. You’ll learn to:

• partner the business to make better decisions
• build high-quality plans and forecasts
• evaluate investments and performance
• improve processes and controls
• use digital tools (including AI) to unlock insight and efficiency

You’ll build deep professional skill, broad business exposure, and a strong network—while working with iconic brands and talented colleagues.

What will the programme involve?

The three-year programme is packed with a variety of experiences. You’ll develop your interpersonal and management skills by working on live projects that offer you all the experience you need.

You’ll gain experience across financial and management accounting and be business-facing, communicating with key contacts across functions. First-hand experience is the fastest way to learn—whether that’s building forecasts and performance views, evaluating investments, or improving the quality and speed of reporting.

The Unilever culture is varied and friendly and encourages innovative thinking. We will push and encourage you to achieve your potential, while giving you the chance to shape your career path according to your interests, strengths and ambitions.

Professional qualification and learning

Your role will be underpinned by studying for the CIMA qualification (fully supported), alongside a structured learning curriculum covering:

• Unilever’s end-to-end value creation model
• commercial finance and performance management
• storytelling with data and executive-ready communication
• governance, controls and risk
• digital finance, automation and AI-enabled ways of working

Think of it as accelerated leadership development—grounded in real business application from day one.

Coaching and support

You’ll have a strong support network, typically including a career sponsor, line manager, programme manager, and a peer cohort, helping you build capability, confidence and impact.

What could your day-to-day role include (depending on your role)?

You will work across local, regional and global teams in a range of finance roles, including accounting and controlling, business partnering and specialist expertise. Finance plays an integral part in setting strategic direction, bringing impactful insights to inform business strategy, and ensuring our resources and investments drive profitable growth.

Your influence will directly impact the future of our brands, the way we work with our customers, and how we run our supply chain—all with global sustainability implications. Depending on your role, you may:

• partner teams to shape growth plans, challenge assumptions and quantify trade-offs
• build forecasts, track performance, and turn complex information into clear decision narratives for leaders
• evaluate investments (innovation, pricing, media, productivity, capacity) with rigorous ROI thinking
• improve processes and controls, increasing efficiency and reliability while reducing manual work
• apply digital tools to accelerate analysis, automate repeatable tasks and free up time for higher-value thinking—always operating within robust governance, confidentiality and stewardship expectations
• collaborate across teams to improve data quality, consistency and insight so decisions are made with confidence

Some positions you could be allocated to include:

• Partnering roles such as Commercial Finance partners in a Business Group
• Process and performance optimisation through Finance Excellence teams
• Stewardship experience in the Group Chief Accountant’s Department
• Expertise opportunities in the Investor Relations team
• Factory Finance knowledge

Skills required include:

• Analytical thinking and a desire to solve problems using data
• Stakeholder management and the ability to influence outcomes
• Effective communication and the ability to simplify complexity
• Prioritisation and ownership
• A mindset of continuous improvement: looking for s