ACCA-qualified finance and strategy professional specialising in UK higher education. TRAC compliance, capital appraisal, FP&A transformation, and strategic financial modelling.
I am an ACCA-qualified finance and strategy professional shaped by seven years of work at the intersection of regulatory compliance, capital investment, and financial transformation in UK higher education.
My approach is consistent regardless of the problem: impose structure on complexity, build a model that is transparent and defensible, and translate the findings into decisions that senior leaders can act on with confidence. My track record spans TRAC returns that have satisfied OfS and external audit scrutiny, financial models accepted at University Executive Board level, and transformation projects selected as institutional blueprints.
I am drawn to the boutique strategy consulting model: bringing structured thinking and genuine sector expertise to situations of real financial consequence, rather than applying generic frameworks to problems that require specific knowledge of how education institutions actually work.
UK higher education is at a genuinely consequential moment. The financial pressures facing the sector are not temporary disruptions but structural shifts that will determine which institutions flourish and which contract. The conversation about how universities navigate that shift is most useful when it is grounded in how institutions actually work. This website is a small contribution to that conversation, a place to share thinking on the strategies, frameworks, and decisions that matter most, in the hope that something here is useful to the people working on these challenges every day.
Nine projects. Real institutions. Real financial consequences.
Each issue explored in this blog has a strategic pathway. Select a topic below, then move through five focused frames showing what changes, how quickly, and what it takes to get there.
Original frameworks for how UK universities can respond to the structural, financial, and competitive pressures facing the sector.
Most UK universities treat the TRAC return as a compliance exercise something to complete annually and file with OfS. This misses the point entirely. The cost allocation methodology that sits behind TRAC is one of the most powerful financial planning tools available to a university finance team, and almost no institution uses it that way.
TRAC forces a university to answer a question that most never ask clearly: what does it actually cost to deliver each activity Teaching, Research, and Other when central overhead is allocated on a defensible, evidence-based basis? The answer to that question has direct implications for pricing, portfolio decisions, and investment allocation.
The financial pressure on UK universities is forcing a reckoning with cross-subsidies that have existed for decades. Teaching income subsidising research. Popular programmes subsidising expensive niche programmes. Central professional services growing without accountability to the activities they support. Activity-based costing the methodology TRAC uses makes those cross-subsidies visible and measurable. Once visible, they become manageable.
The ABC model organises cost allocation in four levels: cost pool categorisation, cost driver assignment, allocation to TRAC activities, and institutional disaggregation to faculty and programme level.
Fixed costs estates, depreciation, central services flow through broad activity drivers reflecting structural consumption. Variable costs consumables, direct academic support flow through intensity-based drivers reflecting actual usage.
The resulting cost profile aligns with TRAC regulatory requirements and simultaneously reveals the true economic margin of each university activity. The same methodology that produces the regulatory return produces the management information.
Hierarchy 4 disaggregates TRAC activity costs to Faculty, Department, and Programme level, enabling contribution analysis at the most granular level the data supports.
This enables portfolio prioritisation decisions, identification of cross-subsidies, and evidence-based resource allocation all from the same methodology that produces the regulatory TRAC return.
No UK university currently offers a postgraduate programme specifically designed for second and third-generation family business owners. The CFBM concept is not simply a new programme it is a vehicle for building a global network of family enterprise leaders, positioning the institution as the institution of choice for this segment worldwide.
The two-year structure is deliberate. Year 1 builds the network and delivers commercial value to partner businesses through the Business Clinic. Year 2 converts those business relationships into REF-eligible research outputs, creating a compounding return on the institutional investment in each cohort.
Every enrolled CFBM student is a gateway to a Strategic Partnership. Their business surfaces a real challenge. The challenge is matched to academic expertise. Co-designed research produces REF-eligible output an applied report, recommendation, or publishable paper aligned to the REF submission cycle.
GradMatch x PBSA revolutionises the traditional purpose-built student accommodation model into a vibrant living-learning ecosystem. Rather than treating student housing as a passive infrastructure asset, this model embeds career services, employer networks, and AI-driven learning directly into the accommodation environment.
The five strategic pillars of the model are: integration of living and learning, enhancement of student experience, improvement of employability outcomes, promotion of financial sustainability, and alignment with institutional strategic delivery plans.
The PBSA environment is structured around six student-facing pillars. Real-time job matching and career coaching are delivered via in-room digital portals. Alumni mentorship and employer-sponsored internships are available on demand. AI-curated skills workshops are tailored to each resident. Peer-led career clubs and hackathons use communal PBSA spaces. Entrepreneurship incubation zones support startup ventures. Round-the-clock career counselling and wellbeing support are embedded in the residency.
Experiential learning is embedded directly in PBSA spaces through real employer projects. Work-integrated projects contribute credits towards degree completion, closing the gap between academic learning and industry application. Industry-led research initiatives align education with market needs. AI-driven career tracking is integrated seamlessly into academic paths, with automated dissertation and internship placement matching.
The Fund commits £10m toward the expansion of GradMatch-embedded PBSA, structured as a strategic investment in career-integrated educational infrastructure. Of this, £7m is designated for infrastructure development PBSA Career Hubs, AI technology integration, and co-working spaces. The remaining £3m funds AI career services, employer partnerships, and the digital platform connecting students with job opportunities and industry resources.
The model generates diversified revenue across accommodation income, career service fees, digital platform subscriptions, and employer partnership receipts making the investment financially sustainable independent of any single income stream.
Proven financial sustainability through positive ROI on the premium career-integrated PBSA model. Scalable the investment structure supports future PBSA portfolio expansion as the GradMatch model is validated across sites.
SLREIF is a student-managed investment fund that provides real experiential learning in real estate and private equity, while financing strategic university capital projects through genuine investment activity. Students own 10% of the fund and manage real capital. No UK institution currently offers this.
The fund targets income-producing real estate assets: purpose-built student accommodation, research laboratories, and co-working spaces. All investments are ESG-aligned from inception, with AI-enhanced market analysis and blockchain-verified governance.
SLREIF enables genuinely unique academic programmes that no competitor offers: an MSc Real Estate Investment where students manage live fund activity, an MBA ESG Asset Management track, micro-credentials in blockchain finance and ESG compliance, and global secondments in London, New York, and Dubai through fund partnerships.
The fund commits £10m toward research facility construction and expansion sustainable energy systems and research laboratories giving students oversight of a real institutional-scale capital commitment. A further £10m is committed to STEM laboratory spaces, generating measurable fund returns while directly funding research capability.
Co-branded industry training programmes with sector partners create research-industry collaboration generating commercial income alongside REF-eligible academic output.
The solution introduces analysis codes on the finance chart of accounts for each building, plus five new activity codes to classify maintenance and operational activities precisely. All three estates systems are connected through those unified codes eliminating manual reconciliation.
EMS Database → ServiceNow (auto-populates codes on ticket creation) → CBRE Reports (linked via building identifiers) → Unified Dashboard (single source of truth).
Total delivery: 26 weeks. 255 hours total commitment across Finance, Campus Services, and IT.
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I work across capital project appraisal, financial modelling, FP&A transformation, and finance business partnering in UK higher education. If you are working on a problem in any of these areas and want to talk it through, I am happy to connect.
Open to advisory, consultancy, and interim engagements with HE institutions and HE-adjacent organisations.