Project Admin Assistant - School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences - 106217 - Grade 5

University of Birmingham; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 29,000 - 32,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading university in Birmingham is offering a part time administrative position to support the FutureForests Innovative Doctoral Training Network project. The successful candidate will manage project communications, organize events, and handle budget monitoring. Ideal for those with strong organizational and communication skills. The salary ranges from £29,647 to £31,460 depending on experience, with opportunities for progression.

Benefits

40 days paid holiday

Pension scheme

Generous family-friendly benefits

Qualifications

• Minimum of grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent.
• Highly proficient in handling complex electronic diaries and emails.
• Ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements.

Responsibilities

• Provide administrative support for the FutureForests project.
• Organize training schools, workshops, and project meetings.
• Manage and monitor financial budgets for the project.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Proficient IT skills

Excellent interpersonal skills

Strong organizational skills

Education

A Level or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Office Suite

Job description

Position Details

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £29,647 to £31,460, with potential progression once in post to £35,388

Grade: 5

Part Time (21 hours per week)

Fixed Term contract up to August 2029

Closing date: 6th October 2025

UK travel may be required for this role

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

The post holder will be based in the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, and the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences and the main duties are to provide administrative support for the FutureForests Innovative Doctoral Training Network project involving principal investigators and associated project partners across Europe. The facilitation assignments include communication with project partners, organization of training schools, workshops and project meetings at the University of Birmingham and across Europe with project partners, managing and monitoring the financial budget, developing and maintaining project website and social media accounts, organizing inbound and outbound visits of staff and students for training schools and project meetings, support in event planning elsewhere, and local hospitality, supporting hiring process of PhD students, managing project progress reports, and records and administer expense reimbursements for project staff and partners during training schools and project meetings. The post holder will also be required to facilitate and support doctoral researchers and their supervisors of the FutureForest project at the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research\'s Free Air CO2 Enrichment (BIFoR-FACE). The post holder will be dealing with events from time to time, thus will need to work flexibly when events are held in the evening and/or at weekends both in the UK and at partner institutions in Europe.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for all aspect of event administration, including devising promotional materials, social media posts and management, organising invitations and monitoring responses, venue identification and booking, and booking catering. You will need to co-ordinate with colleagues in order to ensure smooth and successful delivery of training and meetings events.
• You will write all event-related communication (hard and soft copy), ensuring that it complies with University branding guidelines, is written in a language appropriate to the target audience, and sent via the most appropriate means of communication.
• You will devise methods to ensure the FutureForest Project receives targeted feedback from attendees; you will consider this and make recommendations for future events.
• You will be responsible for recording event statistics and measuring these against agreed key performance indicators (KPIs) such as achieving attendance rates, cost per head targets, etc.
• Supporting the development and delivery of multi-channel communication activities to key stakeholders (e.g. PhD students, associated partners and targeted staff).
• Coordination of communications briefings, web pages, newsletters and social media campaigns, as appropriate.
• Developing content for project webpages which will include you regularly reviewing pages and ensuring content is suitable as per the FutureForest project dissemination programmes.
• Dealing with a wide range of more complex enquiries and correspondence independently or exercising judgement to redirect them to project leads and supervisors engaged directly in the FutureForest project.
• Providing other administrative support for the FutureForest team including arranging travel, servicing meetings, and diary management.
• Monitoring budgets including processing payments, authorising expenditure, raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

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. A University degree is desirable but not essential.
• 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 (such as webpage maintenance and development) 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 post holder 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.

Dimensions

This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within and beyond the FutureForests project investigators at the University and with external project partners and contacts.

Planning and Organising

The role is required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons without daily supervision. May manage others staffs' workloads.

Problem Solving and decision making

They will work with direction from management but with a significant degree of autonomy. They will deal with more complex queries and be expected to resolve any problems in their area of responsibility. They may also manage the workload of others or coach others to achieve results.

Internal and External relationships

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University-wide and with external stakeholders.

Informal enquiries to Sami Ullah, email: [e-mail]

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.