Debt Management Executive X

A debt management executive chases money that customers or business clients owe and haven't paid - contacting them, agreeing payment plans, and keeping records of what's been promised and paid. The work sits in credit control or collections teams, either inside a company recovering its own invoices, or at a specialist debt collection or debt advice firm acting on behalf of clients. The "X" in the advert title is almost certainly a grade, level or team marker used internally by the employer rather than anything meaningful about the job.

Starting salary: £22k–£28k
Live graduate jobs: 1 open now
Main way in: Direct entry into a credit control, collections or customer…
They usually ask for: Degree subject very rarely matters

Approximate graduate salary

Roughly around £22,000–£28,000 to start is typical, though this varies widely by employer, sector and location, with London and specialist financial services at the higher end. Many collections roles add a monthly or quarterly bonus linked to amounts recovered or targets met, which can make a meaningful difference to total pay - but bonus structures differ enormously and some employers offer none at all.

What you'd actually do

Working through a list ('ledger' or 'queue') of overdue accounts, ringing and emailing people or business contacts to ask when payment is coming and why it hasn't arrived
Negotiating and setting up repayment arrangements - instalments, revised dates, partial settlements - and recording them accurately on the collections system
Investigating disputes: a customer says the invoice is wrong, goods never arrived, or the service was cancelled, so you chase internal colleagues in sales, billing or operations to find out what actually happened
Sending formal reminder letters and notices at set stages of a process, and deciding (or recommending) when an account should go to a solicitor, external agency or be written off

Show 3 more

Updating account notes and running reports on outstanding balances, overdue amounts and recovery performance - often a lot of spreadsheet and CRM work
Handling incoming calls from customers who are worried, confused or angry, including people in genuine financial hardship who need to be treated carefully and signposted to free debt advice
Attending a team review of the aged debt list with a manager, explaining why particular accounts haven't moved and what the plan is

How graduates get in

Direct entry into a credit control, collections or customer accounts team - this is the most common route, and many employers hire on attitude and telephone manner rather than requiring a degree at all
Graduate schemes in finance shared services, business services or financial operations at larger companies, where collections is one rotation among several - less common but a real route
Internal moves from customer service or contact centre work into the collections or arrears team, which happens a lot in utilities, telecoms, banking and consumer lending
Temp or fixed-term contracts through recruitment agencies specialising in credit control - a very common entry point, and these frequently convert to permanent roles

Show 2 more

Entry at a debt purchase, debt collection or insolvency firm, where training is given in-house and the CICM (Chartered Institute of Credit Management) qualifications are often supported
Charity or not-for-profit debt advice roles (advising people in debt rather than collecting from them) - a different path with a similar skill base, often entered via volunteering at an advice service

What employers ask for

Degree subject very rarely matters; where a degree is asked for at all it is usually 'any discipline', with business, accounting, economics or law seen as a mild plus
Many of these roles are open to people without degrees - A-levels or equivalent plus GCSE maths and English at a good grade is a common baseline, so graduates are competing in a mixed applicant pool
Some employers want prior telephone-based customer contact experience of any kind; others train completely from scratch
In regulated consumer credit settings (banks, lenders, utilities, FCA-authorised collection firms) you will need to pass background and credit checks, and complete training on treating customers fairly and identifying vulnerable customers

Show 2 more

CICM qualifications are the recognised professional route and are often studied part-time while working, sometimes funded by the employer - rarely required to get in, commonly expected to progress
Comfort with spreadsheets and accounting or CRM systems; some business-to-business roles expect basic understanding of invoices, credit notes, VAT and sales ledgers

Skills that matter

Negotiating a realistic payment plan

Getting a smaller amount paid reliably over time usually recovers more than demanding the full sum from someone who cannot pay it.

Staying calm under hostility

A good share of calls involve people who are embarrassed, defensive or abusive, and losing your temper destroys any chance of recovering the money.

Spotting vulnerability and financial hardship

Recognising illness, bereavement, job loss or mental health difficulty and switching to a different approach is both a regulatory expectation in consumer credit and the difference between a workable outcome and a complaint.

Accurate record-keeping

What you noted on the account becomes the evidence trail if the debt goes legal, gets disputed or triggers a complaint, so vague notes cause real problems months later.

Prioritising a large caseload

You cannot chase every overdue account equally, so judging which balances are big, old, or at risk of becoming unrecoverable decides how much you actually collect.

Internal detective work

A surprising proportion of 'bad debt' is really a billing error, a missing credit note or an unanswered query, and resolving it means chasing colleagues rather than customers.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Start on a defined portfolio or call queue with close supervision and scripted processes, building to handling more complex, higher-value or disputed accounts
Move to senior collections or credit controller, typically owning key accounts, handling escalations and doing some credit risk assessment on new customers - timelines vary widely, from a year or so in fast-moving teams to several years elsewhere
Team leader or collections supervisor, coaching a group of collectors, monitoring call quality and reporting on recovery performance
Credit manager or head of credit control, setting credit policy, deciding payment terms and credit limits, and managing the relationship with external agencies and solicitors - CICM qualifications matter a lot at this level
Sideways moves are common and often more interesting than climbing: into wider finance (accounts receivable, treasury, financial operations), into credit risk analysis, into insolvency or recoveries at a law firm, or into regulated complaints and conduct roles

What people get wrong

“It's aggressive debt collection - knocking on doors and intimidating people.”

Doorstep work is done by enforcement agents, a separate and legally distinct job. Office-based debt management is heavily rules-bound, especially in consumer credit, where pressure tactics generate complaints and regulatory trouble; the skill is persuasion and problem-solving, not intimidation.

“Most unpaid invoices are from people deliberately avoiding payment.”

In business-to-business credit control especially, a large share of overdue accounts are stuck on admin problems - wrong purchase order number, invoice sent to the wrong person, a disputed line item. Much of the job is unblocking paperwork, not confronting debtors.

“It's a dead-end phone job with nowhere to go.”

Credit control is a recognised finance function with a chartered professional body and a clear ladder into credit management, and it gives you an unusually direct view of a company's cash position - useful background for finance roles generally.

“Being 'tough' is what makes someone good at it.”

Consistency and follow-through matter more. Collectors who ring exactly when they said they would, remember the detail of the last conversation and make the next step easy tend to recover more than those who escalate quickly.

Where this varies

The job differs a lot depending on who owes the money. Business-to-business credit control inside a company is largely relationship management with other finance departments, polite chasing and dispute resolution, and you often want to keep the customer. Consumer collections at a lender, utility, telecoms firm or debt purchaser is high-volume, phone-heavy, tightly scripted and governed by FCA consumer credit rules on fair treatment and vulnerable customers. Debt advice roles in the charity and advice sector sit on the opposite side entirely - helping people deal with creditors - and feel more like casework than collections. Separately, the title 'executive' here usually signals an entry-to-mid individual contributor, not a senior post; some employers use 'credit controller', 'collections advisor' or 'recoveries agent' for essentially the same work, so search on all of those terms. If the 'X' in an advert is unexplained, it is worth simply asking the recruiter what level it refers to.

See all 1 live Debt Management Executive X jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.