Assistant Financial Performance Partner – Finance Office – 107384 – Grade 7 Full Time NEW

Position Details

Finance Office

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822

Grade: 7

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 14 th May 2026

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

Achieving the global ambitions of our University strategy depends on our people – and we are proud of our highly talented and engaged professional services colleagues. Our culture is ambitious and high-performing, but also supportive and inclusive. Career progression is encouraged, and you will have the opportunity to take responsibility for your own professional development and wellbeing. We actively support collaboration within and across disciplines and roles. Our staff have high levels of engagement and pride in the University.

Roles at this level provide authoritative professional advice across a range of activities and/or will lead and manage a diverse team(s) and resources. You will use your professional skills to resolve problems where the solution is not immediately apparent. Significant evaluation and independent thought is therefore required to resolve ambiguity. You will have wide discretion to decide on direction whilst ensuring activities are broadly consistent with operational policies. You will be able to influence policy through advising on the impact of policy change and implementation in your area of work. You will need to assess the impact of your activities across your area, with related areas and to ensure they fit with the broader objectives of the University.

Department Overview

The Finance Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team sits within the Financial Services department which also includes the Business Partnering and Corporate Accounting teams. The team are responsible for running a reliable and responsive Financial Planning and Analysis function that provides the Chief Financial Officer, Deputy Director of Finance, the Senior Management Team across the university with incisive, value-add financial support and analysis which facilitates effective decision making.

Role Summary

Reporting to the FP&A Manager, this is a newly created role to provide a change in focus and support the FP&A team. The Assistant FP&A Business Partner plays a critical role in supporting strategic decision-making across the institution by delivering insightful financial analysis, forecasting, and planning support. They will liaise with Finance Business Partners to produce timely updates and reports on university finances and produce accurate and insightful analysis. This role will have a particular emphasis on Capital expenditure.

They will also work closely with the Corporate Accounting Team to ensure finance data is consistent and accurate for both reporting, but also to ensure the accounting treatment is correctly applied.

Main Duties

• Consolidate the university’s capital expenditure budgets and forecasts through liaising with stakeholders across the institution
• Produce the financial information for capital business cases and post investment reviews collating data from the finance system, centrally agreed assumptions and in some cases, non-financial data from other systems and stakeholders
• Work with the Corporate Accounting Team to ensure they have the correct detail in order to apply the appropriate accounting treatment and accurately record the projects in the fixed assets register
• Provide expert advice and guidance to project managers/sponsors and other relevant stakeholders in the production of project spend reports/analysis being a trusted member of the project management team.
• Provide guidance on resource allocation, cost optimisation, staffing decisions, and program financial viability.
• Provide reports and data for institutional regulatory returns such the Office for Students (OFS), Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Office for National Statistics (ONS), Charity Commission and other regulatory bodies, including benchmarking against the sector.
• Where required, challenge stakeholders on assumptions underpinning forecasts or investment cases, along with ensuring the integrity and consistency of the financial data supplied by the Finance team to other areas of the university and to external stakeholders.
• Completing activity to deliver the team objectives, ensuring all financial forecasting requirements are met and improving and developing budgeting and forecasting processes.
• On cross-university finance activities, conduct variance analysis, trend analysis, and program-level profitability assessments
• Actively engage and collaborate with, as well as support the other members of the Financial services team
• Production of data for the year end external audit.
• Continuous development of self through coaching and training, both formal and informal, to develop and embed a strong financial controls environment.
• Actively engaging with the wider Finance function to support the Finance Strategy.
• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) plus relevant practical experience – where no equivalent qualification is held significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required.
• Professional accounting qualification (ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, ACA) and evidence of continuous professional development
• Strong business partnering skills
• Strong decision support background through provision of analysis and insight
• Experience of producing a management reporting
• Experience of creating business cases for projects
• Team player, with exceptional interpersonal skills, able to work with a diverse and broad range of stakeholders across the organisation. Demonstrable ability to influence.
• Good written and oral communication skills, able to communicate clearly, concisely, accurately and in ways that promote understanding, to both finance and non-finance specialists.
• Strong influencing skills, able to challenge stakeholders at all levels when needed.
• Ability to work flexibly with conflicting demands so that work is scheduled in order to meet changing priorities and deadlines.
• Ability to plan and organise own workload effectively and get things done.
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the MS Office and website editing software. You should be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly, and to produce and analyse information and data.
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Informal enquiries to Helen Couzens, email: h.couzens@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website .