Finance Business Partner

The role

We are looking for an experienced Finance Business Partner to support the fast-growing Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences here at the University of Bristol. This is an exciting and wide-ranging role, working as one of the financial support leads for this large and diverse faculty. Your role will be varied and offers the chance to make a real impact, optimising financial performance at one of the world’s leading universities renowned for its research, teaching, and commitment to social impact.

Working with Heads of School, School Managers and other colleagues, you will help them achieve their goals, using a business partnering approach to deliver excellent customer service. Reporting directly to the Head of Finance, you will be providing financial advice and shaping decisions, with a significant part to play in the budget setting process and contributing to the Faculty strategy.

This is a fixed-term maternity cover role, commencing May 2025. This is a full-time role; however, the University allows some flexibility in working hours, and also offers an excellent blended working policy, allowing you to work remotely for part of the working week. However, you will need to work from the office at least once a week, usually on Tuesdays. 

What will you be doing?

You will be business partnering with key stakeholders on a day-to-day basis, advising them on decision making supported by top quality and innovative Management Information.  You’ll produce this information with help from a Finance Analyst and also through utilising your own experience in reporting the most relevant information to a variety of audiences.

You’ll also take a lead in setting the faculty’s annual budget and then ensuring its delivery against this through monthly forecasting and reporting on Income & Expenditure.

You’ll interpret and share financial performance covering both revenue and capital expenditure.

Finally, you’ll use your commercial skills to identify of areas for cost savings, efficiencies and improvement.

You should apply if

You are an experienced accountant, with an aptitude for working with both finance and non-finance specialists.

You will be an excellent communicator, with strong interpersonal, analytical and problem-solving skills.  You’ll be an expert in providing the correct information to a variety of different audiences.

You’ll be happy working both autonomously and also as part of a growing team.

With a full workload, you’ll be able to identify which issues should be prioritised over others.

Additional information

Contract type:

Fixed term maternity cover, 01/05/25 to 31/08/26 or earlier return of postholder

For informal queries Euan Hendrie, Head of Finance, ALSS (euan.hendrie@bristol.ac.uk).

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