W

Workday

Builds software to manage HR and finances

Principal Functional Consultant

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
No salary listed
Expert
London, UK
HybridFlex work requires at least 50% of each quarter in the office or in the field; travel may be up to 30%.
Solution EngineeringImplementation & Technical Account Management

About the job

Requirements
  • 10+ years of functional consulting experience, either as an internal consultant or with a consulting or software company, focused on enterprise financial management applications.
  • 6+ years of hands-on experience implementing or configuring Workday Financials, including Core Financials, Foundation Data Model, General Ledger, Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable, Assets, Banking, or Revenue.
  • Deep understanding of corporate financial accounting, multi-currency operations, and statutory reporting frameworks within the UKI region.
  • Fluency in English.
  • Ability to build trust with finance leaders and functional subject matter experts, constructively challenging legacy processes in favor of modern, standardized software-as-a-service workflows.
  • Business analysis, requirements gathering, and workshop facilitation skills, with the ability to present technical configurations clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Capability to mentor junior team members and review configuration quality across sub-workstreams.
  • Ability to support sales through executive pitches, complex RFP/RFI responses, scoping services efforts, and articulating Workday architecture's business value to prospective C-suite buyers.
  • Capability to use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to optimize financial processes, design touchless accounting flows, and advise the Office of the CFO on adopting artificial intelligence for efficiency and predictive intelligence.
  • Ability to act as a strategic advisor to finance leadership, connecting solution recommendations to business strategy, key metrics, and executive priorities.
  • Comfort working in high-stakes environments where timelines, budgets, and quality are tightly managed, with a focus on risk identification, mitigation, and executive-ready communication.
  • Ability to learn technology quickly through different mediums.
  • Resourcefulness and adaptability, including comfort working remotely and using collaboration and productivity tools with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Ability to travel up to 30% of the time under normal circumstances, as customer and sales pipeline needs require.
Responsibilities
  • Take a lead role on project engagements and own core functional finance workstreams across complex, end-to-end Workday Financial Management implementations.
  • Act as a trusted advisor to key financial stakeholders, drive solution design workshops, configure system setups, and guide customers through key project milestones.
  • Complete or refresh Workday Core Finance Certification and obtain advanced specialist certifications across key modules, such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable/Receivable, Procurement, or Expenses, within the first three months.
  • Take immediate ownership of primary Finance workstreams on active deployments and act as the primary functional expert during discovery and configuration phases.
  • Work with cross-functional project leads, including Data, Integration, and Technical Consultants, to architect touchpoints across the solution delivery landscape.
  • Facilitate deep-dive business requirement sessions with CFO organization subject matter experts, demonstrate standard Workday best practices, and map legacy accounting structures to the Workday Foundation Data Model.
  • Lead Unit, end-to-end, and user acceptance testing streams, manage client resolution paths for edge cases, and guide customers through risk-mitigated go-live cutover activities.
  • Deliver at least one to two full-cycle complex implementation projects in the UKI market within the first year.
  • Lead multi-stream financial designs, mentor P3/P4 functional consultants, and contribute to internal UKI practice assets and continuous deployment innovations in the second year.
  • Support customers and sales pipeline needs through travel of up to 30% of the time under normal circumstances.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience in the UKI public sector across both the sales cycle and implementation.

About the company

Workday builds cloud software that organizations use to manage employees, finances, and business plans. Its Human Capital Management and Financial Management applications handle processes such as hiring, payroll, expenses, accounting, and reporting, while Adaptive Planning helps teams build budgets and forecasts. Users work in connected applications with shared data and permissions, and Workday also sells AI tools that search information and carry out HR and finance tasks. Customers pay for subscriptions, with additional revenue from implementation, training, and other professional services. Workday was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

Pleasanton, California

Founded

2005

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Subscriptions keep growing: Workday reported quarterly subscription revenue up 13.9% to $2.471 billion in August 2026 results.
  • Regional distribution expanded: Workday launched UAE operations with a Dubai office and local leadership in October 2026.
  • Employee development has explicit support: Workday's current careers page highlights internal mobility and investment in employee skills.

What critics are saying

  • Job security weakened: Workday announced a 2.5% workforce reduction, mainly in Product and Technology, in September 2026.
  • Incumbents resist displacement: Workday names Oracle and SAP as primary rivals with established customer relationships in HR and finance.
  • Enterprise sales take time: Workday reports typical new customer sales cycles of six to twelve months, sometimes exceeding eighteen.

What makes Workday unique

  • AI acts inside established permissions: Workday launched Sana with over 300 HR and finance skills in March 2026.
  • Federal planning meets authorization requirements: Workday Adaptive Planning achieved FedRAMP Moderate for sensitive unclassified data in July 2026.
  • Custom apps inherit platform controls: Workday Extend lets developers build applications using its existing organizational and security models.

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Benefits

  • Flexible Work Hours
  • Hybrid Work Options
  • Performance Bonus
  • Stock Options
  • Professional Development Budget
  • Conference Attendance Budget

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

0%
Yahoo Finance
Oct 23rd, 2026
Invisors launches PayBill Suite to streamline staffing firms' pay and billing on Workday

Invisors, a Workday Services Partner, is expanding PayBill Suite, a set of Marketplace Apps for staffing firms that run on Workday. The apps, built through the Built on Workday Partner Program, handle Time-to-Pay and Time-to-Bill cycles. The Contract Management app manages the contract terms and rules that set pay and bill rates. Other apps cover customer time approval, mass time loads, unit-based billing-pay, multi-rate pay, and pay when paid. Invisors says the suite automates processes, cuts integrations, and improves data integrity. Steve Sexton, professional services lead at Invisors, said finance teams are moving from manual reconciliation to more accurate, timely invoicing and faster audit response. The work helped Invisors win Workday's 2025 Partner of the Year for Innovation.

South Jordan Journal
Oct 22nd, 2026
Workday prices $2.5B senior notes offering to refinance $1B of 2027 debt

Workday has priced a $2.5 billion public offering of senior notes, the company announced on October 21, 2026. The offering is expected to close on October 23, 2026, subject to customary conditions. The offering has four parts: $750 million of 5.700% notes due 2029, $500 million of 6.000% notes due 2031, $750 million of 6.300% notes due 2033, and $500 million of 6.500% notes due 2036. Workday will use the proceeds to retire its $1 billion of 3.500% notes due April 1, 2027. Any remainder will go to general corporate purposes. Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Barclays, and Wells Fargo Securities are joint book-running managers.

Fortune
Oct 21st, 2026
Workday CFO Zane Rowe: AI's value goes beyond ROI and output

Workday chief financial officer Zane Rowe says finance chiefs should judge AI by better work and decisions, not output alone. Return on investment still matters, he told Fortune, but so do stronger decisions, greater capacity, and improved customer value. An AI tool might help a finance team produce twice as many reports, Rowe said, but that does not make the business better. The real test is whether the team uncovers insights, anticipates problems, and advises leaders. Workday is expanding Decision Intelligence to HR and finance, letting teams model scenarios such as hiring changes by region. At its Rising event, it also announced "autopilot agents" for accounting, payroll, and hiring, and a partnership with Anthropic. Rowe's tax team is developing 10 AI agents, though not all will make the cut.

Fortune
Oct 19th, 2026
Workday's second act: Bhusri returns as AI fears hit and revenue growth slows to 13%

Workday's cofounder Aneel Bhusri has returned as chief executive officer of the enterprise software firm, taking back the job in February. He had handed it to Carl Eschenbach in 2024, according to Fortune. The company, which makes human resources, finance, payroll, and planning software, faces fears that AI agents will make per-seat software obsolete. Revenue growth has slowed to 13%, and Workday has gone through several rounds of layoffs. Activist investor Elliott Management is reportedly "lurking in the wings." In 2018, Workday topped the Fortune Future 50. Its software ran critical operations for half of the Fortune 50 and more than 35% of the Fortune 500.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 18th, 2026
ServiceNow's revenue grows 24% to $4B, outpacing Workday's 13% growth and $2.7B quarterly sales

ServiceNow is growing revenue faster than Workday, according to an analysis of the two software companies' last eight quarters. ServiceNow's second-quarter revenue reached $4.0 billion, up 24% year over year. Workday's hit $2.7 billion, up 13%. ServiceNow's AI offerings passed $1 billion in annual contract value (ACV) during the quarter. Customers with more than $5 million in ACV rose 23%. Workday said AI capabilities drove more than 25% of its new ACV in its fiscal second quarter.