Head of Student Finance in Hatfield

Salary: UH9 £58,225pa to £69,488pa by annual increments on achieving designated skills and experience.

Job reference: REQ000503

SBU/Department: Academic Registry/Student Administration Service

FTE: 1.0 FTE (working 37 hours per week)

Duration of Contract: Permanent

Annual Leave: 30 days plus standard public holidays and an additional 4 days, including the closure of our offices between Christmas and New Year.

Location: College Lane Campus, Hatfield. Travel to other campuses will be required to meet the demands of the role. Hybrid working available, dependent upon business needs.

The University of Hertfordshire is a modern and enterprising university located in Hatfield, just 25 minutes from London. Serving over 35,000 students from more than 110 countries, we are proud to be a globally diverse and inclusive university offering over 700 career‑focused degrees, strong industry connections and industry standard facilities. We are recognised in the Guardian’s Top 50 UK universities and top 25% of institutions for both student satisfaction and research impact.

We are seeking an experienced and motivated professional to lead the Student Finance department within the Student Administration Service.

The Head of Student Finance will oversee the management of Income Control, Student Account Management, and Student Funding and Financial Support teams, ensuring a professional, innovative, and forward‑thinking approach to student finance. You will be responsible for policy, systems, and administration relating to the collection and debt management of student tuition and accommodation fees and payment of student scholarships, access and participation bursaries and hardship funds. The role requires you to lead, manage and develop the team to deliver a professional and knowledgeable advisory service with the ability to deliver service excellence while protecting the University against financial risk.

You will have a track record of successfully leading all aspects of a large finance function and experience of managing a team, including recruiting, developing, training, appraising and motivating staff. A thorough understanding and appreciation of relevant national and international developments, policies and benchmarks and a broad knowledge of current approaches to service‑related work and of current debates, issues and challenges within the HE sector are essential. You will also have experience of dealing with highly confidential, sensitive information and an awareness of Data Protection legislation. You will have financial management skills, with experience of the preparation of reports (including statistical) for use in policy development and to inform senior decision making. The ability to understand and interpret complex regulations and the ability to meet agreed deadlines in a busy and complex environment are essential. You will also have the ability to motivate staff and develop and maintain high performing teams, as well as the ability to innovate and manage change whilst maintaining high‑quality service delivery. Experience of monitoring and managing budgets effectively would be advantageous.

You will be educated with a minimum of a degree or equivalent or have significant professional work experience in an equivalent finance‑related role. Please view the job description and person specification for a full list of the duties and essential criteria. Please attach a personal statement showing clearly how your skills and experience match the Person Specification.

Internal applicants – please ensure you apply via your employee self‑service portal. We regret that we are unable to offer UKVI sponsorship for this post; applicants will either hold UK Right to Work or demonstrate access to UK Right to Work before an offer is made.

Please contact Mark Partridge, Director of Student Administration Services (Student Services), m.partridge2@herts.ac.uk

Closing Date: 15 February 2026

Our vision is to transform lives: UH is committed to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and building a diverse community. We welcome applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of their protected characteristics and recognise there are different ways applicants may achieve the criteria in this document. We offer a range of employee benefits, including generous annual leave, flexible location opportunities within the UK, discounted Sports Village memberships and free Active Staff sessions, personal and professional development and family-friendly policies.