Senior Administrator (Research) - School of Education - 102427S26 - Grade 5

Position Details 

School of Education  

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK 

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,062 to £31,900, with potential progression once in post to £35,883

Grade: 5

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to October 2027  

Closing date: 19th November 2026

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 

Background 

The School of Education’s Operations Team provides the administrative infrastructure that supports the School’s teaching, research and wider strategic priorities. The team works collaboratively with academic and professional services colleagues across the School, College and University to deliver effective, compliant and high-quality services.

The Senior Administrator, Research is part of this team and contributes to the effective delivery and continuous improvement of research administration. The role involves working with colleagues across three academic departments, the School, College and central University teams, as well as supporting a collaborative and collegiate working environment.

Role Summary 

As Senior Administrator, you will coordinate a range of research-related activities across the School of Education, including internal output review cycles, Research Excellence Framework submissions, research projects, and support for research centres and groups. You will organise meetings and events, collate and analyse information, monitor progress, follow up actions and ensure that requirements are delivered accurately and on time.

You will build effective relationships with academic, professional services and external colleagues, providing a responsive and reliable service while supporting compliance with relevant policies and regulations. 

Working with the Executive Officer and Deputy Head of Operations, you will contribute to continuous improvement and the optimisation of the portfolio. They will also support wider team initiatives, including data analysis, events and small projects.

This position also provides line-management for a part-time Research Administrator.

Main Duties 

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. You will line manage your staff taking responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others.  You will still be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team.
4. Maintain high profile working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
5. You will be involved in organising events and academic conferences including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, manage bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
6. You will manage some smaller projects on own initiative, and will also carry out desk research and source data from internal and external sources in order to contribute to wider projects.
7. 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.
8. Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
9. Support the breadth of the Operations Team’s role and remit, including being flexible to respond to other portfolio needs in times of high workload or leave.
10. Process more complex data (which may be financial, HR, student-related or other), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and resolving any issues as appropriate. 
11. Provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on area of activity. 
12. As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings. 
13. You may be required to 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.
• Treats everyone with dignity and respect in line with current equality legislation.

1. Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity duties document.

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.
• 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 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 university policies and procedures relating to equality and diversity.
• Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity knowledge, skills and experience document.

Informal enquiries to Ewan McArthur, email: [email protected] 

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.