University of Birmingham
Student Casual- Senior Administrator/ PA – Estates- Grade 5 - 907530
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Job Description
Post Title
Senior Administrator/PA
College/Division
Estates
School/Department
Estates West
Full Time/Part Time
Part time
Duration of the Post
ASAP- October 2026
Grade
5
Hourly Rate
£16.52 per hour plus holiday entitlement
Number of Positions Available
1
Closing Date
27/07/2026 at 23:55
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
At the University of Birmingham, Worklink is the dedicated student employment service which helps students find flexible, well-paid jobs on campus. Each year, the University invests more than £2.5 million to employ 3,000 of our own students in a wide range of roles to support our student community. Jobs through Worklink help students gain work experience, develop skills relevant for their future careers, and improve their soft and hard skills in a professional setting.
The Worklink team are passionate about connecting students with work opportunities. We are based in a central location on campus and can also be contacted online. Find out more about working through Worklink here or via the student intranet.
Job Context
Working within the Estates Office, this post provides essential PA support across the Projects/Operational Support functions and essential administrative duties across the wider Estates department.
Job Summary
As a Senior Administrator / PA within a team/department you will provide support for a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex. You may also be responsible for managing other staff or for supporting colleagues and sharing knowledge. You will use your excellent organisational skills and attention to detail to ensure the people you support are well prepared, and that the tasks you carry out are completed to a high quality in a timely manner.
Main Duties
- Undertake complex diary management and meeting planning, usually 6-12 months ahead, making decisions on the best use of time. This will require you to understand the priorities and deadlines you and your manager(s) are working to and will involve developing relationships across the University and beyond.
- Proactive inbox management, with confidence to make decisions on behalf of others where appropriate.
- Dealing with a wide range of more complex enquiries and correspondence independently, or exercising judgement to redirect them to senior colleagues or other departments within the University.
- 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.
- Maintain high profile working relationships with key stakeholders, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
- Proactive preparation and collation of meeting-related papers, working collaboratively to determine what information might be required in advance of a meeting, articulating clear deadlines for submission and proactively chasing where necessary. This may include attending meetings to provide high-quality committee support, taking minutes and following up as appropriate.
- Arranging complex UK and overseas travel, including booking flights, hotels, transfers, and organisation and planning of itineraries, ensuring best use of time and taking into account budgetary constraints.
- Organisation of events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, manage bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
- Collate, analyse and interpret data. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
- 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.
- Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
- Will be responsible for one or more of the following: monitoring budgets including processing payments, authorising expenditure, raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget, procuring goods and services through the University system, updating and writing contents for the department’s communications eg intranet pages, dealing with health and safety and facilities issues, HR-related tasks such as managing staff absence, induction, or dealing with leavers, dealing with arrangements for international visitors, monitoring internal procedures/compliance and ensuring these are followed and disseminated as appropriate.
- Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
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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 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent level 2 qualification.
- Previous administrative or PA experience.
- Highly proficient IT skills, in particular the ability to handle complex electronic diaries and emails, the wider MS Office suite of programmes including excel and PowerPoint, and some experience of using an enterprise resource planning package. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
- Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own (and sometimes others’ workloads) to manage time effectively, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
- Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder 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.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
For any informal queries, please contact Katie Stone (k.stone.1@bham.ac.uk)
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.
The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time for a maximum of 13 consecutive weeks. For more details on casual working restrictions, including guidance for students whose course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g., PGT, PGR, or PhD student), please review our guidance in the Student Casual Handbook.
To work you will need to carry out a right to work check. These checks must be completed prior to work commencing. More guidance on right to work checks can be found in the Student Casual Handbook.
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.
Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we’re unable to contact all applicants individually. You can check the progress of your application by logging into the Worklink jobs portal using the same email address you used to apply. If you haven’t heard back within six weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has been unsuccessful. If you would like to receive feedback on your application, you can request it by opening a Worklink portal case.
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 the University website.
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