Job Description
Position Details
School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting hourly rate is normally in the range £16.29 to £17.29, with potential progression once in post to £19.44
Grade: 5
Part Time (40 hours over 13 weeks)
Fixed Term contract up to October 2025
Closing date: 20th July 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
As a senior administrator within the research team, you will provide support for a broad range of duties as outlined below, some of which may be complex. You will also be responsible for supporting colleagues and sharing knowledge. You will be able to use your wide range of skills, both technical, administrative, and scientific, and have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within a team. Much of the work you will undertake is outward-facing.
Main Duties
- You will be able to deal with complex systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries.
- You will be expected to exercise your judgment on the answer to queries or on the direction of work within parameters set by your manager. On a day to day basis you will be expected to resolve more complex queries without necessarily referring to your manager.
- Maintaining high profile working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries, and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders.
- Involvement in organising events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, manage bookings, co-ordinating colleagues, advertising, collating feedback, and reporting back.
- Carrying out desk research and sourcing data from internal and external sources to contribute to the project.
- Will manage some smaller projects on own initiative, but will also carry out desk research and source data from internal and external sources in order to contribute to wider projects.
- You will be expected to use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, analyst and interpret complex data, producing bespoke reports as required. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
- Supporting the management, development, and implementation of operational processes and systems.
- Processing more complex data (which may be financial), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and resolving any issues as appropriate.
- As required, providing a professional secretarial service to relevant meetings.
- You may be required to be responsible for the following:
- monitoring budgets
- procuring goods and services through the University system
- updating and writing contents for the department’s communications, e.g. intranet pages
- dealing with health, safety, and facilities issues
- dealing with arrangements for international visitors
- monitoring internal procedures/compliance and ensuring these are followed and disseminated as appropriate
- Support equality and value diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
- Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
- Minimum of grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent.
- ESSENTIAL: Be able to communicate in German, in writing and speaking as well as reading German (at least CEFR level B2).
- Highly proficient IT skills, in particular the ability to the wider MS Office suite of programmes including Excel and PowerPoint. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
- Will be able or learn to build and maintain a website.
- Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own workload (to manage time effectively, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.
- Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
- Excellent interpersonal skills. The post holder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
- A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
- A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
- Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
- Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these.
- Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
- Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
Dimensions
This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within and beyond the department.
Planning and Organising
The role holder is required to, at times, work independently, without daily supervision.
Internal and External relationships
This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, University-wide and with external stakeholders.
Informal enquiries to Ruth Whittle , 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 . 
