Functional Lead - Finance Office - 101665 - Grade 8

University of Birmingham; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 64,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading academic institution in Birmingham seeks a Functional Lead for Research Finance systems. This role oversees the University’s Research Finance processes, enhancing system capabilities to support academic and operational functions. The ideal candidate will manage a small team, ensuring optimal system use and fostering stakeholder engagement. A degree, Oracle certification, and experience with WorkTribe or Oracle Projects are essential. The position offers competitive salary and significant professional development opportunities.

Benefits

40 days paid holiday a year

Occupational sick pay

Pension scheme

Flexible working arrangements

Qualifications

• Must have good supervisory and coaching skills to manage, motivate and develop staff.
• Ability to effectively communicate with user/customer areas to understand their requirements.
• Proven people manager, collaborative and supportive.

Responsibilities

• Lead continuous improvement across the Research Finance systems landscape.
• Manage a small team providing support and guidance.
• Build deep knowledge of Research Finance processes and underlying system capabilities.

Skills

Communication

Problem Solving

Organisational Skills

Education

Degree or equivalent experience

Relevant Oracle Certification

WorkTribe or Oracle Projects Knowledge

Job description

Position Details

Finance Office

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £47,389 to £56,535 with potential progression once in post to £63,606

Grade: 8

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 15th December 2025

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

Role Summary

The Core Systems Optimisation Team (CSOT) is responsible for delivering and continually enhancing the University’s Core Systems, which underpin key academic, financial, and operational activities. These systems play a vital role in supporting the University’s ambitions to grow income, control costs, increase efficiency, and further digitise our processes.

Reporting to the Head of CSOT, the Functional Lead will take full ownership of the University’s Research Finance systems (Oracle Projects and WorkTribe). This role serves as the key lead for Research Finance systems, providing direction, expertise, and oversight for how research project finance is supported end‑to‑end. You will build deep knowledge of Research Finance processes and the underlying system capabilities.

You will drive continuous improvement across the Research Finance systems landscape, identifying enhancements, shaping future functionality, advising on best practice, influencing roadmap priorities, and overseeing configuration changes. As the primary specialist in this area, you will work closely with business stakeholders, subject matter experts, and the Managed Service Provider to ensure the University maximises value from its systems and that issues are resolved effectively.

The role also carries a leadership dimension, managing a small team, representing CSOT in key forums, and deputising for the Head of CSOT at internal and external meetings. Strong communication, stakeholder engagement, and technical understanding are essential, as you will be the go‑to expert and strategic lead for Research Finance systems across the University.

Main Duties

Workstream Delivery

• Maintaining a clear vision, an overall direction and successful delivery of the workstream.
• Ensuring appropriate documentation is developed and maintained for the functional area for which you are responsible, this includes but is not limited to:
  • Functional team’s performance against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operating Level Agreements (OLAs).
  • Current defects by priority with the Managed Service Provider.
  • Resolved defects identified by their root cause.
  • Known issues and workarounds.
  • Quarterly look forward plans of activity.
  • Catalogue of process maps, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and training guides, including last date of review.
  • Backlog of enhancements to be implemented and their priority.
  • Results of audits of the configuration within each environment against the configuration workbook maintained by the Managed Service Provider.
  • Recommendations made to functional areas on how business processes can be improved.
  • Roadmap of functional enhancements.
  • Knowledge Transfer documentation from Managed Service Provider on level 2 calls (i.e. break/fix queries, configuration issues, troubleshooting, functionality issues) from the IT Helpdesk that they resolved in order to increase CSOT knowledge base.
  • Integration maps of data that passes to other systems.
  • Review of the appropriateness of the data that passes to other interfaces.
• Ensuring that the University’s use of the software is optimised. This will involve understanding the associated benefit realisation of the Implementation programme and using this information to influence the development of the software as well as challenging the business to deliver the benefits.
• Understanding the nature of defects and their root‑cause ensuring that robust fixes are deployed as quickly as possible. This may involve using escalation processes with the Managed Support Providers and/or Oracle. Ensuring the root cause of the issue is understood and mitigated to prevent its re‑occurrence and the resolution is identified and implemented.
• Briefing and consulting stakeholders and end‑users as to progress at appropriate intervals, obtaining feedback on early stages of identifying changes to the software to ensure maximum user engagement.
• Identifying and advising the University on business process improvements that can be made in the functional area. This will involve understanding of the Oracle Roadmap and the content of forthcoming quarterly releases.
• Developing a functional roadmap of enhancements for bi‑annual release.
• Managing the release of new Oracle updates within your functional areas. This will ensure that regression testing is performed, and any defects raised and resolved prior to deployment to production.
• Ensuring that changes are communicated to stakeholder groups and training resources and process‑maps are updated accordingly.

Data Integrity

• Identifying quality issues with any data within your functional area which is created by individuals outside of your team and raising with the Data Owner to enable timely action is taken to correct, escalating, if necessary, until resolved.
• Being accountable for the integrity of any data manipulated within your team.

Governance

• Working with Head of CSOT and other Workstream Leads to ensure appropriate planning, communications, consultation, documentation, and other relevant control is maintained for CSOT.

System knowledge and Testing

• Ensuring your functional area provides resolution to all Level 2 calls within SLAs, seeking guidance from the Managed Support Partner for the more complex calls. Ensure any support received is documented as part of the knowledge transfer library to develop knowledge and understanding within CSOT.
• Evaluating and minimising the impact on integrations of any functional changes being made.
• Providing on‑going knowledge transfer to the business functions, to ensure they are self‑sufficient at possible.
• Evaluating the nature of requests for end‑user support and identify whether that need can be proactively met e.g., more training on a particular area.
• Reviewing the user roles, to ensure that they are being used and allocated appropriately and remain fit‑for‑purpose.
• Becoming the functional ‘expert user’, through on‑job and formal training and self‑study of the Oracle and WorkTribe materials.
• Reviewing the University’s reporting requirements within your functional area. Commission any additional reports with the end‑user in mind, based on any needs that are not currently being met.

Team Management

• The Functional Lead will manage a small team, allocates responsibilities and/or packages of work.
• Provides support and guidance as required, in line with individuals’ abilities and delegates responsibilities as appropriate.
• Advises individuals on career paths and encourages pro‑active development of skills and capabilities.
• Sets performance targets, and monitors progress against agreed quality and performance criteria.
• Provides effective feedback, throughout the performance management cycle, to ensure optimum performance.
• Mentors individuals, possibly within other parts of the team. Participates, as appropriate, in formal processes such as compensation negotiations and disciplinary procedures.

Stakeholder Management

• Building trust and credibility with stakeholders.
• Maintaining open communication.
• Understanding stakeholder expectations and managing them effectively.
• Identifying and managing potential risks associated to the stakeholders.
• Fostering collaboration and cooperation between CSOT and its stakeholders.

Training and End‑user support

• Maintaining process‑maps and SOPs.
• Maintaining a list of “known‑issues” appropriate for end‑user consumption.
• Working with the Training and Support Manager to ensure training materials remain relevant and fit‑for‑purpose.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Qualifications:

• Degree or equivalent experience.
• Relevant Oracle Certification.
• WorkTribe or Oracle Projects Knowledge is required.

The post holder will have the following combined knowledge, experience, and personal qualities.

Communication

Must be able to effectively communicate with user/customer areas to understand their requirements and then deliver them. Must have good supervisory and coaching skills to manage, motivate and develop staff. Must be able to provide advice to others and often required to persuade them to follow a particular course of action.

Problem Solving

Must be able to anticipate, interpret and assess customer needs, identifying trends, generating original ideas, and testing innovative solutions. May have to resolve issues, which may not have arisen before, relying on own experience and judgement, but with regard to wider implications across the University.

Organisational Skills

A proven people manager – collaborative, clear, supportive, diligent, and effective at managing performance. Must be able to plan and organise individual and or team activity to meet broader defined objectives. Must be able to integrate and co‑ordinate work across different parts of the department and University.

Informal enquiries to Stella Poole, email: [e-mail]

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.