Senior Administrator - School of Physics and Astronomy - 105663 - Grade 5

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

Job summary

An established university seeks a Senior Administrator to support its dynamic School of Physics and Astronomy. This role involves managing a variety of administrative tasks, from HR to finance, and requires strong interpersonal and organizational skills. The successful candidate will work closely with a diverse team, contributing to innovative research projects and fostering a collaborative environment. With a commitment to inclusivity and professional development, this role offers a unique opportunity to thrive in a supportive academic setting while making a significant impact on the university community.

Benefits

40 days paid holiday

Paid volunteering day

Occupational sick pay

Pension scheme

Subsidised day nurseries

Qualifications

• Educated to A Level standard or equivalent, with strong IT and communication skills.
• Experience in administrative roles, managing complex systems and procedures.

Responsibilities

• Provide support for HR, finance, and event management within the School.
• Manage complex queries and maintain relationships with key stakeholders.

Skills

Interpersonal Skills

Communication Skills

IT Skills

Organizational Skills

Judgment and Decision Making

Education

A Level or equivalent qualification

GCSE Grade C/4 in Mathematics and English

Tools

MS Office Suite

Enterprise Resource Planning Software

Job description

Senior Administrator - School of Physics and Astronomy - 105663 - Grade 5

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Job Description

Position Details

School of Physics and Astronomy

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

As this vacancy has limited funding the maximum salary that can be offered is Grade 5, salary £29,647

Part Time (18 hours per week)

Fixed Term contract up to June 2026

Closing date: 13th May 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, 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 Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham invites applications for an Senior Administrator role to support for the School’s Particle Physics Research Group, and the wider School. The successful applicant will work closely with members of the Group to provide a front of house service across a range of functions, including HR, finance, facilities and events. This is a varied role requiring good interpersonal skills and relationship management across staff and students within the School, as well as across wider University contacts. The post holder will be part of the School’s wider administrative team, and will also contribute to School-wide activities.

The Particle Physics Research Group comprises around 60 people, including academics, researchers, PhD students and technicians. It is a world-leading research centre, with long-standing involvement in several large international experiments at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, aiming to understand the physical nature of the world around us. The Group is also involved in new experiments at the Boulby Mine in Yorkshire aimed at discovering Dark Matter – an extremely elusive component of the universe – as well as major new experiments in the US.

For further information about this post, please contact: Professor Cristina Lazzeroni ( [e-mail] ), and Anna Jenkin ( [e-mail] ).

The School of Physics and Astronomy has a wide-ranging research portfolio covering not only particle physics, but also astrophysics, nuclear physics and quantum physics. Our research was ranked top in the UK for 4-star-category research by the Research Excellence Framework 2021. Since 2012, our researchers in the School have been associated with three Nobel prizes (through membership of collaborations, and two former colleagues winning the prize for work conducted in Birmingham).

The School of Physics and Astronomy is an Institute of Physics Juno Champion since 2014 and holder of an Athena SWAN Silver Award. Both initiatives recognise the School’s commitment to promote diversity and equality, and to encourage collegiality and good working practice for all members of the community, whilst also working towards developing an equitable working culture in which all students and staff can achieve their full potential. We welcome applications from all qualified applicants, and encourage applications from traditionally under-represented groups in Physics and Astronomy including, but not limited to, women and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Groups.

Role Summary

As a Senior Administrator within the Group and wider School, you will provide support for a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex. You will be responsible 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. You will also have the opportunity to work in different areas of the School and also to help support the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, which the School is part of.

Main 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 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 e.g. 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.
• Assisting the Head of Group in monitoring expenditure and liaising with Research Finance to ensure that funds on grants are utilised. This will also involve assisting with cases for staff extensions, and organising financial transactions with CERN.
• 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 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 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 workloads of other staff.

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 Professor Cristina Lazzeroni, email: [e-mail] and Anna Jenkin, 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 .

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Part-time

Job function

• Job function

  Information Technology

• Industries

  Higher Education

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