Job Description

Position Details

College of Medicine and Health

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £33,002 to £35,608 with potential progression once in post to £39,906

Grade: 6

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to September 2028

Closing date: 23rd July 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

Department overview

This is an exciting opportunity to work with one of the largest clinical trials units in the country. The Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU) is a Department within the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Birmingham. The CRCTU employs a multidisciplinary team of around 200 staff including statisticians, trial management staff, research nurses, monitors, programmers, administrators and IT staff. It specialises in running research studies testing new treatments for diseases (mainly cancer or rare disease) in both adults and children.

Clinical trials are multi-institutional collaborative research projects with complex funding, contracting, and financial arrangements. The Unit is organised into Trial Management Teams which are led by a Team Leader who works with the lead investigators to obtain funding for the delivery of each trial. CRCTU has a portfolio of approximately 100 clinical trials funded by charities, government, and pharmaceutical companies.

The Senior Finance Officer will support the CRCTU and will be jointly manged by the CRCTU Business Support Manager and the Research Project Finance Manager in the College Research Project Finance Team.

The post holder is responsible for maintaining effective oversight of CRCTU’s portfolio of research project funding, undertaking financial monitoring, preparing financial summaries and communication of financial information to Team Leaders and the senior leadership team within the CRCTU. This role will ensure that high-risk research project accounts are identified, prioritised and those risks are mitigated to both prevent loss of income and alleviate School and College financial pressures created by research overspends.

The post-holder plays a key role in ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of the CRCTU’s financial processes, with responsibility for undertaking day-to-day financial tasks, including supporting complex procurement activities, transaction processing and maintaining accurate financial records.

In addition to core financial duties, the Senior Finance Officer provides clear and timely financial reporting to the CRCTU leadership team, contributing to effective financial decision-making and planning. The role requires strong attention to detail, good organisational skills, and the ability to communicate financial information in a clear and accessible manner.

The post holder will need to work effectively across the CRCTU, College Research Project Finance Team and with the Research Strategy and Services Division Post-award Team (RRSD) to provide accurate, timely, and consistent data, along with clear, accessible reports to the CRCTU Directors and Operational Management Committee enabling them to make informed financial decisions.

Main Duties

The post holder will:

• Responsibility for monitoring research funding across the CRCTU, to include regular reviews of income and expenditure, identification of any potential issues and proactive engagement with Team Leaders.
• Responsibility for the preparation of financial summary documents at a research project, team portfolio and unit level, with associated explanatory detail to enable effective decision making.
• Ensuring spending is in line with budget or plans and advising on implications.
• Liaising with relevant contacts to resolve day to day queries or issues identified through financial monitoring.
• Provide challenge when required regarding budgets/spend and change requests, be able to understand and disseminate key financial issues to non-finance experts and advise / liaise with Team Leaders regarding all new staff appointments and extension of contracts for existing staff.
• Investigate, manage, assess, and process complex information from a variety of documentation to resolve queries and provide information and guidance to Team leaders and external funding bodies.
• To assist CRCTU Business Manager and Research Project Finance Manager with the management of tasks e.g. financial trackers, closure preparations, resolving issues and ad hoc one-off tasks.
• Continually looking to improve and develop systems and procedures to enhance service and outputs, presenting ideas and suggestions to the Team Leader where appropriate
• Calculation and reporting of budget to date information considering agreed principles and assumptions.
• Ensuring that the financial information provided is relevant and understood.
• Producing ad-hoc financial data as deemed necessary.
• Reviewing the financial position, interpreting and analysing information and communicating these in a clear way to the CRCTU Leadership Team.
• Understanding and interpretation of management information for use in business decision making.
• Identifying critical areas of financial performance and focussing time on those areas where improvements can be made.
• To establish and maintain effective purchasing processes across the unit and provide dedicated support for complex purchases.
• Provide ad hoc supervision of junior staff as and when required
• The ability to develop and propose solutions to problems for review.
• Promotes equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications). Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a similar role will be required.
• Significant practical experience in a similar role, experience of using project management tools.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly, and to analyse information and data.
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the wider MS Office suite of programmes including excel and PowerPoint.
• Ability to understand policy, processes and procedures, but also to recommend improvements and implement changes.
• Excellent analytical skills used to produce reports, identify issues and resolve them decisively.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. The post holder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
• A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
• 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.

Further particulars can be found here

Informal enquiries to Allyce Pope, email: a.pope@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