Job Description
School or Department: Communications and Reputation, External Relations
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Grade/Band: Grade 3
Hourly rate: £14.08 per hour plus holiday entitlement
Casual contract from: 20/09/2025 (provisional, may be subject to slight change) – 08/12/2025
Advert closing date: 02/09/2025, 23:55pm
Number of positions available: 2
Please note that this vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. We advise you to submit your application promptly.
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 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.
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
Background
The Communications and Reputation department is responsible for enhancing the University’s reputation by promoting its strengths and positive messages through a variety of communication channels to a wide range of audiences.
Role Summary
This is a fantastic opportunity for continuing students (1st & 2nd years, 3rd years continuing to a Masters) with a keen interest in marketing, content creation, video editing, and design. The role’s duration is a year, hence the need to be a continuing student. Student content creators will act in variety of capacities, to be the face of the student life at the university, working alongside the Communications and Reputation Team to deliver high quality content for our audiences in China. The role purpose will be to create content for the University’s Chinese social media channels as well as other institutional university channels as required. Particularly, we are looking for students who can contribute in the following ways:
- Create ideas for content based on audience needs and University outcomes.
- Create and design social media posts.
- Video and graphical editing.
- Photography and videography.
- Presenting/participating in videos.
- Comfortable being on camera and engaging others.
The broad nature of the role means that there are several ways you will be able to contribute to the Communications and Reputation Team. You will have particular expertise/interest in creating content for Chinese social media, particularly Rednote. You may also have some experience in graphic design, including the creation of posts for social media.
The role will be on a part-time basis, with 15-20 hours per week being required. We particularly welcome applications from students of all backgrounds, representing the fantastically diverse student body within the university.
Main Duties
- Create and/or present video content for the University’s official Chinese social media channels.
- Edit videos, including adding Chinese subtitles, trimming footage, and enhancing audio and visual quality to suit Chinese platforms and audiences.
- Conduct interviews with students, staff, or visitors to highlight diverse campus perspectives.
- Assist with brainstorming and planning content ideas that resonate with prospective students and Chinese-speaking audiences.
- Monitor trending topics, brand mentions, and competitor content on Chinese platforms; provide regular reports and insights.
- To brief in and undertake graphic design projects as required.
- Other reasonable requests within the Communications and Reputation team.
Person Specification
- Must be a continuing student, not in final year of study (1st and 2nd year undergraduate, 3rd year undergraduate continuing to a Masters, first year of multiple-year postgraduate course).
- Must be fluent in writing and speaking Chinese.
- Keen interest in current social media trends, as well as experience in the production of content for a variety of platforms.
- Positive attitude and approach to achieving results (finding and using relevant learning opportunities to improve results).
- Knowledge of emerging social media trends and experience of utilising these channels within a communications or marketing role.
- Experience of video production and editing.
- Experience of copywriting, proofreading, and content editing.
- Ideally experience of graphical design packages and associated technologies (e.g. Adobe software).
- Strong sense of creativity and storytelling.
- Excellent interpersonal, organisational, spoken, and written communication skills to deal effectively, confidently, and appropriately with students and staff at all levels.
- Ability to prioritise workload and anticipate problems, to progress work thoroughly and reliably sometimes under pressure and to tight deadlines.
- High levels of attention to detail. Responsible, responsive, and able to work independently.
- An effective team player who can demonstrate that they have not only worked successfully as part of a team, but that they are able to self-direct workload and priorities.
- Calm and focused under pressure.
- An understanding of the University’s aims and objectives.
N.B. The broad variety of roles available means that candidates do not require all the above experience/qualities, rather fitting to one or more areas of the roles.
For any informal queries, please contact Jack Sinclair (j.a.sinclair @bham.ac.uk
)
View our staff values and behaviours here
Valuing excellence, sustaining investment
We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.
The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time. If your application is successful and your course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g. PGT, PGR or PhD student), you and your supervisor must formally agree vacation periods if this role exceeds 20 hours per week. In addition to this, please be aware if you are an International student you will be required to apply to the Registry for the appropriate Authorised Absence.
You are only eligible to apply to this role if you are a current University of Birmingham student. If you are not a University of Birmingham student your application will not be considered.
To work you will need to carry out a right to work check.These checks will need to be completed prior to work commencing. 
