The Role

The Finance Platform Lead will provide technical leadership, guidance, and expertise in the development, implementation, and optimisation of our Finance Platforms (predominantly Oracle EBS). This role ensures that the platform aligns with Unite Students objectives, is efficient, well run, and is equipped with the latest features and functionalities to support Unite Students Finance, Operational and Central teams.

You will own the Finance (Oracle EBS) Platform vision, strategy and roadmap ensuring communication and buy-in from the wider business.You will have a real passion for our users, understanding the importance of using insights about how our users engage with our platforms and products to drive continuous improvement and innovation.

You will collaborate closely with senior stakeholders across the business to lead on both continuous improvement, current and future projects.This involves overseeing system changes and enhancements, and leading project initiatives to improve system processes and deliver measurable value for our users and business.

Leading a team of c8 Finance Analysts, you will be passionate about people and about creating a supportive and high-performing environment to help develop and motivate a team towards a shared purpose and outcomes.

This opportunity requires a blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and people leadership. Additionally, you will enjoy building and maintaining strong relationships with our third-party SaaS suppliers.

What You`ll Be Doing

• Build and grow a high performing team with the skills to deliver digital-enabled value through our current and future Finance platforms (primarily Oracle EBS). Empower a team to make decisions, creating phycological safety for them to develop, test and learn at speed.
• Work closely with the business to set Finance platform strategy, priorities, manage dependencies and maintain alignment with business outcomes.
• Establish and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver large scale changes and continuous improvement (small change) through the entire development lifecycle, measuring the impact on both user experience and business outcomes.
• Accountable for in-life platform performance, defining and reporting on the success.
• Provide expertise and team leadership in managing end-user support; creating robust business processes and system documentation; diagnosing and fixing system issues; managing UAT; and ensuring Audit compliance of the platform.
• Set and align team priorities with our overall Digital, IT and Business Strategy and OKRs.
• Build partnerships with our Platform Partners (i.e. Oracle) ensuring a two-way learning process, driving optimal value from those relationships.
• Keep up to date with emerging finance technologies and market trends, feeding these back into the team and business.

What We`re Looking for in You

• Significant experience and results in building and coaching high-performing, collaborative and fulfilled teams.
• Experience with Oracle Systems, Modules, including Finance, P2P, and Workflow.
• Proficient in providing support and analysis for Oracle EBS R12; preferably familiar with using a call logging system.
• Technical understanding of Oracle Databases and development tools.
• Familiar with UAT processes
• Previous successful delivery and measurement of innovation and continuous improvements across Platforms / Products.
• Track record of managing complex technology projects from design to build, test, implementation and measurement.
• Has built strong relationships with third-party SaaS supplier creating and driving a collaborative, high performance results.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills with the ability to quickly gain the confidence of the business and team members.
• Ability to understand and use data to drive decisions and prove or dis-prove hypothesis.
• Understanding of complex business problems to apply technology and the "art of the possible" to solving these problems for the business and our customers.
• Proven ability to respond to and prioritise changing demands effectively.
• Strong business instinct and judgement, with a desire to challenge the status quo.

What You`ll Get in Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company`s success
• 25 days` paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service
• A generous pension scheme - employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is a FTSE 100 business and the UK`s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 25 leading university towns and cities, with 74,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with a passion for creating room for everyone, doing what`s right, keeping US safe, and raising the bar. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.

We are US.