Finance Business Partner - Programmes

Join us at EIT:

At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we’re on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators and innovators to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges in four transformative areas:

• Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology
• Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change & Managing CO₂
• Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

This is ambitious work - work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you’ll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real‑world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society. Explore more at www.eit.org.

Your Role:

EIT Oxford is seeking a skilled and experienced Finance Business Partner (FBP) to play an integral and collaborative role within the Finance – Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team. This team plans, analyses and reports the financial and operational performance of dedicated initiatives and programmes.

In this role, you will work in close partnership with Operational teams across several key areas of the organisation, including the Scholarship programme, outsourced partnerships and the Economics team. You will ensure operational plans are fully costed, accurately forecast and aligned with broader organisational goals. Your work will meaningfully shape strategic, commercial and operational decisions through insightful reporting, thoughtful planning and strong analytical capabilities.

Your Responsibilities:

Business Partnering

• Provide supportive financial leadership and offer constructive challenge to the Operational leadership team, helping enable confident and informed decision‑making.
• Act as a trusted advisor to all budget holders, offering clear, accessible financial insights and acting as a reliable point of contact for finance‑related queries.
• Collaborate closely with teams across the organisation to align financial strategies with business needs, including analysing costs and recommending ways to optimise resources.
• Provide financial expertise to support the development of business cases for new investment initiatives.
• Develop innovative solutions to complex problems and play an active role in successful change implementation and delivery.
• Champion continuous improvement across Finance processes and management initiatives.

Budgeting, Forecasting & Monthly Reporting

• Lead the month‑end management accounts process, ensuring accuracy, alignment with budget holders, and strong attention to detail.
• Prepare annual budgets and quarterly reforecasts for designated business areas, delivering high‑quality financials, insightful variance commentary and timely submissions.
• Create clear, engaging budget and forecast presentations that explain variances and communicate underlying assumptions with clarity.
• Produce monthly reporting for budget holders and senior leadership, including thoughtful and meaningful variance analysis.
• Support improvements to systems and tools to enhance automation, transparency, accuracy and efficiency.

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Qualified accountant (ACCA/CIMA or equivalent) with a strong academic foundation.
• A Finance Business Partner who can demonstrate progressive, relevant experience and continued career growth.
• Experience preparing financial and performance reports, with an understanding of MI reporting.
• An excellent communicator who can challenge and influence senior stakeholders with confidence, fairness and integrity.
• Experience with ERP, planning and reporting platforms; experience with Oracle Fusion is beneficial.
• Comfortable preparing and presenting management information with clarity and impact.
• Knowledge of management accounting methodologies.
• Able to translate complex financial information into clear, accessible language for non‑financial colleagues.
• Results‑oriented, with a track record of delivering meaningful business improvements.
• Strong numerical capability.
• High proficiency in Microsoft Office products, particularly PowerPoint and Excel.
• Able to build strong, trusted relationships across functions and levels of the organisation.
• A proactive self‑starter who is highly organised, detail‑focused and accurate.
• Comfortable managing a busy workload and able to plan and prioritise effectively.
• Able to use initiative when addressing unstructured or ad hoc issues.
• Innovative, with a strong motivation for efficiency and continuous improvement.

Our Benefits:

• Competitive salary + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday + options to buy additional days
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme
• Childcare benefit

Working Together – What It Involves:

• You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. In certain cases, we can consider sponsorship, and this will be assessed on a case‑by‑case basis.
• You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford (or be willing to relocate).

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