Senior Administrator and PA - College of Medicine and Health - 106186 - Grade 5

University of Birmingham; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 36,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK university is seeking a Senior Administrator to support a key research trial. The role involves acting as a personal assistant to the trial lead, managing relationships with stakeholders, and organizing various events. Ideal candidates should possess excellent IT and communication skills, along with experience in administrative tasks. This position offers a full-time, fixed-term contract with comprehensive benefits.

Benefits

40 days paid holiday a year

Occasional volunteer day

Occupational sick pay

Pension scheme

Subsidised day nurseries

Qualifications

• Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements.
• Ability to use complex University systems and processes.
• Experience in managing and prioritizing workloads.

Responsibilities

• Act as a Personal Assistant to the trial lead.
• Manage relationships with key stakeholders.
• Organize events including booking venues and coordinating with speakers.

Skills

Highly proficient IT skills

Excellent communication skills

Excellent interpersonal skills

Ability to work effectively in a large organization

Education

Educated to A Level standard or equivalent

Minimum grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE

Tools

MS Office Suite

Enterprise Resource Planning package

Job description

Position Details

College of Medicine and Health

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

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to September 2028

Closing date: 4th September 2025

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, andweare 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 todevelopthrough our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programmewhichprovides allprofessionalservices staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential.With almost 5,000professionalservices jobs in a wide-range of functionsin Edgbaston andin our campus inDubai, there are plenty of opportunities foryou to be able to develop yourcareer 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 andtothe success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer avarietyof 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 dayspaid holidaya 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 thebenefits of working for the Universityof Birmingham

Background

The UNexplained InfertiliTY treatment Trial (The UNiTY Trial) is an NIHR funded project exploring differing treatment options for couples with unexplained infertility, two key aims alongside are to improve male-factor diagnostics and also better capture couple’s feelings and thoughts along their fertility journeys. The research team work across the Department of Metabolism and Systems Science within the College of Medicine and Health, and the Fertility Centre at Birmingham Women’s Hospital.

The post holder will be a point of contact for UNITY trial activities, helping deal with enquiries from funders, academic collaborators and external stakeholders. They will provide administrative support to the trial Chief Investigator, as well as key research team members, including: co-ordination across the trial centres; sourcing of commodities and equipment; coordination of meetings, events and visits; financial administration and reporting; maintenance of project websites and contact lists; participant contact; data entry and manipulation; independently prioritising workload and reporting on milestones as appropriate.

We are particularly committed to working alongside patients from underserved communities in our work and enthusiasm for this is an essential aspect of this role.

Role Summary

As a Senior Administrator within the Involvement and Engagement team 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 be able to use your wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, and have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within the trial team.

Main Duties

• You will act as a Personal Assistant to the trial lead Professor Jackson Kirkman-Brown. This will involve liaising with University of Birmingham stakeholders as well as Birmingham Women’s Hospital staff to co-ordinate diaries and schedule meetings around clinical duties.
• 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.
• You may be a point of contact for trial sites and be prepared to offer support throughout the project.
• 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.
• If you have a supervisory role, you will line manage your staff taking responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others. 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 on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
• You may be involved in organising events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, manage bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
• 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.
• 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.
• Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
• 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.
• Provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on area of activity.
• As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 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 howthe 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 department. May manage a team or budgets.

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.

DBS required

The University is committed to safeguarding and we promote safe recruitment practice, therefore all associated pre-employment checks will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed.Due to the nature of the work undertaken in this role all successful applicants will be subject to a satisfactory DBS clearance prior to appointment.

Further particulars can be foundhere

Informal enquiries to Lucy Oakey, email: [e-mail]

View our staff values and behaviourshere

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 .