Job Description
Position Details
College of Social Sciences
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £32,546 to £35,116 with potential progression once in post to £39,355
Grade: 6
2 positions available:
1x Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to August 2026
1x Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to June 2026
Closing date: 14th August 2025
This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.
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
Our mission is to work in partnership with students to empower them to get involved, achieve their goals and grow at university.
It is important that students have a positive and distinct experience at each step of their University career. The post holder is therefore responsible for enhancing student engagement, driving continuous improvement in the student experience through a range of projects, and ensuring that students are appropriately supported throughout their journey to graduation and beyond.
Whilst some of these improvements to the student experience and engagement will be informed by student feedback, the post holder will adopt a proactive approach, engaging with students and staff on a day-to-day basis and also looking at best practice across the University and the wider-sector to continuously review, evaluate and enhance services, support and teaching and learning.
Working with academic and professional services colleagues across the University, the post holder will largely work in a project coordination capacity to: develop and coordinate the delivery of an annual programme of activity to support students; manage student feedback mechanisms in order to identify opportunities to enhance student experience; and, deliver a range of dynamic communications to all students. They will also provide the first point of contact for a broad range of issues associated with student transition, mobility, progression and retention.
Although focusing on current students, the post holder will also provide a critical role working with colleagues in Student Recruitment and Admissions, Careers, Business Engagement and Alumni Relations to join up activity across the complete student journey.
Main Duties
- Identify the requirements and desires of current students to inform a student experience offering. This is likely to be through feedback, surveys, focus groups, and conversations with students and relevant committees.
- Devise, promote and deliver an engaging annual programme of activities and events that meet the needs of students. This may include trips, residential, speakers, careers and networking events, or exam support sessions for example.
- Facilitate and promote staff-student committees to foster and develop an interactive community of students and staff that is inclusive and supportive.
- Support students to take ownership of their learning, for example through supporting with system access, promoting scholarship schemes or mentoring opportunities, or developing accessible information about module choices.
- Share communications and act as a key conduit to students, to ensure that everyone is well-informed and knows how they can participate in the school community.
- Contribute to the School or College plan, to ensure the student experience is a prime consideration underpinning the School or College’s approach.
- Support students and refer them to the appropriate support services as required, for example student welfare services.
- Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
- Educated to Degree level or equivalent relevant experience in a similar role.
- Considerable experience of supporting students in higher education (either in a voluntary or paid capacity).
- An understanding of undergraduate, postgraduate, international and Distance Learning education and the student lifecycle and specifically, issues affecting higher education (nationally and internationally) and the importance of the student experience.
- An understanding of the importance of student feedback systems.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and a proven ability to work with a range of stakeholders including students, academics and senior managers, across the institution and a high degree of personal accountability with the ability to influence, motivate and win support.
- Proactive, highly motivated and well organised, with the ability to work on own initiative and prioritise workloads in order to set up and coordinate new activity or initiatives with a flexible, creative and proactive approach to problem solving.
- Willing to do things differently and has the experience of delivering projects and initiatives with measurable outcomes and deliverables.
- Ability to analyse data and to use the outcomes to inform action planning.
- Effective team working skills.
- A track record of delivering an excellent customer experience.
- Excellent IT skills and an aptitude for learning new packages to support analysis, presentation and communication of information (including VLEs, social media and other digital communications).
- Willingness to work flexibly, occasionally often outside of normal working hours.
- Commitment to continuing professional development and training.
- Experience in project management/coordination.
Desirable
- Experience in developing web-based and social media materials.
- Prior experience of supporting the successful implementation of student survey and feedback action plans.
- Prior experience of supporting a diverse blend of academic programmes.
- An understanding of relevant external accreditation organisations.
Dimensions
This role does not directly manage other permanent staff but will manage casual student staff.
This role does not own a budget.
Planning and Organising
The role is required to plan and organize an annual programme of events and activities for a specific student group within a school. The planning horizon is therefore typically monthly to a year. The nature of the role means that the role holder needs to be a self-starter and to use their initiative, with the ability to plan and manage their workload effectively.
Problem Solving and decision making
The role has a reasonable degree of freedom to shape the student experience programme, within the overall strategy and direction of travel for a school or programme, and within the School Action Plan (to which this role will have the opportunity to contribute). Some activities will be annual fixtures, some will arise from the School Action Plan, and others will emerge from the student or academic body. The role will need to be analytical and evaluative in interpreting requirements, and then be creative and use their initiative to constantly improve and come up with new activities and offerings.
The Head of School can make decisions on whether or not activities go ahead. Role holders do not manage a budget, so if they can deliver an activity or initiative without any spending then they are able to do so. If they require any funds, they will need to seek approval and agree a budget.
There are some areas that relate to the student experience that are out of scope of what this role can influence or decide, including teaching and areas of academic judgment, corporate services activities, and things impacting across the institution that are handled centrally, e.g. timetabling considerations.
Internal and External relationships
This role is very much focused on collaboration and communication, and as such has a wide range of stakeholders with which they work:
Academic relationships: the role needs to influence senior colleagues, identifying collaborators and those that can help influence more widely, as well as bring people with them and encourage the participation of academics in events and activities. The key stakeholders are:
- Head of Education
- Heads of Departments
- Head of School
- Other academics within the School or College
Professional Services: the role needs to co-ordinate with a range on professional services around a range of day to-day activity (such as open days, web page and e-learning updates etc). The main teams that this role interacts and co-ordinates with are:
- Marketing
- Careers service
- Alumni service
- Web team
- Digital Education team
- Student Wellbeing Officer
- Programme Administrators
Students: students are a core stakeholder group, and the role will need to engage and communicate extensively with students. In their communications, they will need to be a friendly and approachable contact, as well as to encourage their participation in the programme of activities and collect their feedback and input. Key routes to this group are:
- Student Representatives
- Student Ambassadors
- Student groups
Informal enquiries to Daryl Johnson, 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 . 
