Role Summary

At the University of Birmingham, students are at the heart of all we do. You will join a professional services team which is passionate about providing excellent administration support for students and staff.

Duties may vary between teams, but you will have the opportunity to contribute or take a lead in all aspects of administration supporting the delivery of our teaching and research programmes for students.

You will work closely with a diverse group of people including managers, academic staff and students to deliver the annual cycle of teaching and learning related activity.

Senior Education Support Administrators normally report to the Education Support Manager (Research Student Administration) and work closely with the Education Support Team Manager (RSA).

The Research Student Administration team forms one half of the Student Administration function, alongside the Taught Student Administration team.

Main Duties

• Act as primary contact for colleagues in Schools, providing expert guidance, understanding and resolving queries, and identifying when to delegate or escalate queries.
• Deal with higher profile contacts on own initiative.
• Work with and support your team to plan, organise, maintain and deliver activities, enabling the successful delivery of programmes; in some teams this will involve you being the designated line manager for staff.
• Specifically take responsibility for the more complex tasks associated with welcome, induction/re-induction, attendance monitoring and recording, timetabling, placements, examinations, progression, and graduation etc.
• Make a substantial contribution to the management, development and implementation of operational processes.
• Prepare and deliver management and institutional reports; this will include responding to complex data requests involving the need to pull information from various sources.
• Compile, manipulate, analyse and interpret large and complex data sets, drawing up reports and/or identifying required actions as appropriate.
• Support the development of systems and procedures to assist in the day to day running of School/Programme administration.
• Responsible for the regular review and update of key documentation.
• Support periodic quality assurance related audits, report on School/Programme compliance, propose solutions and develop and deliver remedial action plans.
• Providing a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• Proactively identify ways of enhancing the curriculum and student experience, making recommendations as appropriate.
• Manage all data in accordance with University policy and Data Protection Regulations.
• Treats everyone with dignity and respect in line with current equality legislation.
• Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity duties document.

Other Duties

• The post-holder will undertake any other duties that may be assigned by the relevant management team in support of more complex activities.
• If in a supervisory role, you will line manage all staff and take responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others, normally as the head of a small team or sub-unit of a team. If not in a supervisory role you will still be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

You will need to evidence:

• Substantial professional experience in a variety of similar roles; and
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics (or equivalent qualifications) and
• A levels or an equivalent level 3 qualification, such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma.

You will be:

• Comfortable in a role where you take significant responsibility and where you are expected to proactively propose new ways of working.
• Comfortable working on your own initiative to complete tasks and projects without close supervision.
• Able to become authoritative quickly on complex systems and be able to advise colleagues on these.
• Able to set the standard for other colleagues, acting as a role model and coaching staff as appropriate.
• You will be able to communicate and delegate effectively as required.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work (your own and the work of others) proactively, independently and as part of a team.

In addition to the above, you should be able to demonstrate and/or evidence the following:

• The ability to work to tight deadlines in a collaborative team environment.
• The ability to supervise and support the work of other team members.
• A good understanding of delivering excellent customer service and the ability to influence others to deliver it too.
• The ability to interact with individuals at all levels of internal and external organisations.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems e.g. student databases/record systems or equivalent.
• Exemplary attention to detail and the ability to work confidentially, use judgement and make appropriate decisions within the constraints of the role.
• The ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.
• Understand the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant university policies and procedures relating to equality and diversity.

Informal Enquiries

Helena Ward, email: h.ward.2@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

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.