Job Description
Position Details
Campus Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £29,647 to £31,460, with potential progression once in post to £35,388
Grade: 5
Full Time (Annualised hours)
Permanent
Closing date: 17th August 2025
Our offer to you
People are at the heart of what we are and do.
The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.
We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.
We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.
Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.
The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.
Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham
Role Summary
You will be responsible for leading a team to deliver excellent customer service in any one of those areas/outlets and for planning and delivering to key performance indicators once the budget has been set. Our Food and Beverage Managers provide proactive support to our Senior Management Team and to the Food and Beverage team's success. As a Food and Beverage Manager, you will be responsible for creating a plan to deliver all financial targets, driving sales, promoting and growing the unit, as well as proactively developing and motivating your team to create a multi skilled workforce. In order to flexibly use resource, you may be required to work elsewhere in the department or wider University.
Main Duties
Ensure that areas within your area of responsibility are set up and operated adhering to your Standard Operating Procedures or Brand Guidelines. You must ensure that all operational and standards audits are passed.
Financial
- Create and deliver a sales plan to achieve the sales target for the unit.
- Control all associated costs; Staff Costs, Casuals, Gross Profit %, Maintenance & Repairs, Consumables, any other Controllable Costs.
- Manage the operation of the stock system, to deliver great product availability, whilst minimising waste. Support the analysis of monthly stocktakes and determine actions to be taken to deliver Gross Profit percentages.
- Deliver all event activity on time and within budget constraints.
- Monitors all cash handling and till / system functions to ensure accuracy and consistency. Investigate and take appropriate actions to deal with non-compliance and ensure that robust systems are implemented to prevent future breaches of procedures.
Safe ways of working
- Ensure that your area of responsibility is operated in a safe and efficient manner. Take remedial action to correct any breach of procedure and implement plans to prevent future reoccurrences.
- To ensure that the agreed standard of food and beverage service are delivered at all times, and that all food and beverage preparation by yourself and those you are supervising meets all legal requirements and is of the highest standard of quality.
- Comply with licensing law when serving alcohol and ensure that your team are compliant too.
- Audit the units on a regular basis to address any potential or developing problems as they arise and become more serious. Implement action plans based on findings and ensure remedial actions are corrected and training provided to prevent repeat occurrences – ensuring units remain compliant with the law and university policies at all times.
- Ensure that all facilities are maintained and operational. Escalate issues that you cannot rectify to your Manager.
- Overall responsibility in the Unit for adherence with all work rules and codes of practice including:
- Health & Safety codes of practice
- Control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH)
- Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) hygiene and allergen recording systems
- Ensure that all administration and paperwork is completed in a professional and timely manner.
Leadership
- Ensure adherence to University HR policies and procedures and relevant employment law for all staff.
- Ensure that goals and objectives are set for the staff, developing organisational capability, and modelling how we work together.
- Displays a “customer comes first” attitude by ensuring excellent service, training and supporting staff to ensure they deliver the same approach. For back of house areas this can include working relationships with front of house team members as well as customers.
- Anticipate customer and unit needs by constantly evaluating environmental and customer’s needs. Communicates information to the line manager so that the team can respond as necessary to create the perfect environment during each shift.
- Ensure that customer feedback is collected, processed and action plans implemented.
- Provides coaching and direction to the Team to take action and to achieve operational goals.
- Constantly reviews working environment and key business indicators to identify problems, concerns and opportunities for improvement to provide coaching and direction to the team to achieve operational goals.
- Create and deliver rolling training plans for new and existing team members. Record all training on in-house systems and reviewed monthly to ensure training records are up to date.
- Carry out regular job chats and performance and development reviews with your direct reports, and be responsible for quality checking that their job chats and performance and development reviews are complete to a good and timely standard to ensure a fair and consistent approach is adopted.
- Implement University HR Policies around Absence management and Performance management as required within your team, consulting with HR Advisory staff as appropriate.
- Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
- To Deputise for your Manager as required in their absence, carrying out duties as requested by the Senior Management Team.
Operational Requirements
- Contracts are annualised and based on 36 hours per week (or pro rata) inclusive of weekdays, weekends, bank holidays and closed days on a rota basis, including evening work activities. Operational windows will vary by business unit/activity. Hours will be defined in your contract of employment.
- BOPS is an all year round service, you will be required to participate as required in the Duty Manager rota, providing management cover 7 days per week / 365 days of the year, and provide emergency response as necessary across all operations.
- To undertake works activities across all UoB campuses as requested that are commensurate with the grade and role activities to support the Division and wider UoB activities.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
- Educated to NVQ level 3 in a relevant subject area or can demonstrate the level of knowledge required to carry out the role gained through a series of roles in a commercial food service
- Literacy and numeracy skills which may be evidenced by Mathematics and GCSE grade C or equivalent (or other equivalent level 2 qualifications)
- Considerable experience of working at a supervisory or management level within a commercial food service and preparation environment
- A current Food Safety level 4 certificate
- Full, clean driving license as your role may involve driving University vehicles
- Current Personal License holder for the sale of alcohol, or be willing to obtain said license with training and support
- Ability to contribute to developing sales and service plans to grow the business
- In-depth knowledge of the Health and Safety at Work Act, HACCP, COSHH, waste disposal and other regulatory guidance is essential, as is knowledge of Fire procedures and the ability to lead others to comply with requirements
- Proficiency with Microsoft suite of programs
- Clear and concise communication skills are essential as you will be in regular communication with managers, staff and customers, good interpersonal skills are also essential with the ability to demonstrate a friendly and courteous manner toward both internal and external customers
- Excellent organisational skills with the ability to lead a team, and work within a wider management team environment to deadlines
- Highly motivated, team player able to engage across multiple student and staff groups with the ability to work under pressure and to timelines
- An understanding of the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace
- The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures
- Ability to present a professional smart appearance in uniform
Dimensions
You will provide proactive contributions in developing and delivering sales and service plans. You will also lead a team in providing excellent customer service in one of the catering team’s areas/outlets.
Planning and organising
You will be expected to contribute proactively to the planning of the service and also to sales plans and targets. You will be able to organise your unit to meet targets as appropriate.
Problem solving and decision making
You will take action to ensure audits are successful and will identify any actions to be taken through your own regular audit of your unit’s performance. You will be able to deal with day to day issues that occur without referral to your manager. You will also be required to deal with more difficult, escalated complaints from customers, ensuring that the root cause is identified and any corrective actions are implemented to prevent reoccurrences, whilst ensuring (as far as is possible) that the customer is happy with the outcome.
Internal and external relationships
Professional working relationships across the catering team and with your manager in particular. Leading your team members. Customers and suppliers.
Informal enquiries to Mathew Larmouth, email:
[email protected]View our staff values and behaviours here
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website . 
