Higher education · Analytics & strategy

Better decisions.
Stronger institutions.

Senior HE leaders are making consequential calls about people, money and strategy with incomplete information. HE Perform closes that gap — with evidence, and with advice you can act on.

Book a 30-minute call See what we do

Works with

UK universities & HE providers

Engagement

Senior expertise, no handover

Typical output

Evidence, options, recommendation

Founded by

Charles Knight, ex-Advance HE

01 / The problem

The analysis gap at the top of your institution.

Consequential decisions — on portfolio, cost, structure and strategy — are being made with partial evidence and limited time to interrogate it.

Senior leaders are asked to decide faster, on thinner evidence, with higher consequences — and without the analytical bench they need.

Internal teams are stretched. External firms bring scale, but also process, handover and generic benchmarks that don't fit your institution.

HE Perform is built for the case in between: senior, independent analysis — delivered directly by the person you brief.

02 / What we do

Analysis and advice across the HE leadership agenda.

A small set of engagements built around the decisions senior teams actually face. Every project is shaped to your institution.

03 / Why us

The person you brief is the person who delivers.

You get senior HE expertise on every engagement — not a partner who sells the work and disappears. We move at the pace your institution needs, without the overhead that comes with scale.

Senior on every call.

No junior handover, no layered billing. The work is done by the person who understands the brief — end to end.

ii.

Built for HE, not borrowed.

Frameworks shaped by the realities of UK higher education — not retrofitted from corporate or public-sector practice.

iii.

Evidence you can defend.

Every recommendation comes with the analysis and assumptions behind it. Your board, exec and staff can all follow the logic.

04 / Who you brief

Independent senior HE expertise — without the firm behind it.

Charles Knight

Founder & Principal · Formerly Advance HE

HE Perform was founded by Charles Knight, a former director at Advance HE, with a career spent helping universities turn complex questions into decisions that hold up under scrutiny.

Every engagement is led and delivered personally — the analysis, the judgement calls, and the conversations with your board. No handover, no layered team, no learning curve on your time.

Previously

Director, Advance HE

Focus

HE strategy & performance analytics

Works with

VCs · CFOs · Registrars · Deans

Based

United Kingdom · Remote & on-site

05 / Contact

Start with a conversation.

If you're weighing a decision that matters — on people, money or strategy — a short call is the best place to start.

Thirty minutes, no pitch. You describe what's in front of you; we'll tell you honestly whether HE Perform is the right fit, and what a useful piece of work could look like.

If we're not the right match, we'll say so — and point you to someone who is.