Support Analyst

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

Job summary

A prominent UK university in Birmingham is seeking a Support Analyst to join their programming team. This role involves managing tier one support requests and providing technical assistance to trial teams and stakeholders. The ideal candidate will have a degree in sciences and strong communication skills. A commitment to diversity and a supportive working environment is emphasized, along with benefits such as generous leave and professional development opportunities.

Benefits

40 days paid holiday

Occupational sick pay

Pension scheme

Subsidised day nurseries

Qualifications

• A good general knowledge of current trends in IT is useful.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team.
• Willingness to acquire new knowledge and skills.

Responsibilities

• Handle tier one support requests and document issues.
• Investigate problems using knowledge and expertise.
• Manage records on active clinical trial management systems.

Skills

Excellent communication

Problem-solving skills

Customer service orientation

Time management

Education

Degree in physical or social sciences

Tools

Microsoft Windows operating systems

Microsoft Office, particularly MS Excel

Job description

Position Details

Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit, School of Health Sciences, 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 February 2027

Closing date: 25th January 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 BCTU has a ten strong team of in‑house senior analyst programmers and technical leads that support the Unit’s clinical trial management systems. These systems are currently developed in either REDCap or Laravel PHP with some older systems using ASP.NET/MVC/.Net Core (C#) and MS SQL Server. The team also supports additional in‑house developed software that aids in the day‑to‑day business of the unit.

The programming team has a portfolio of approximately sixty clinical trial systems, these generate a wide range of tier one technical requests and queries from both internal and external stakeholders, and often need to be dealt with in a timely manner as failing to do so can impact on recruitment and data collection for a trial.

The post holder will be responsible for supporting colleagues and sharing knowledge across the BCTU, providing insight and training on the systems developed; utilising their wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, to lead on specific tasks within the team.

Role Summary

As the Support Analyst you will play a key role in the programming team by handling tier one support requests and by providing technical assistance to our trial teams and external stakeholders. You will be expected to resolve a high percentage of these requests without referring on by referencing our standard procedures and technical guides. Some requests will require you to liaise with central University of Birmingham technical teams and you will be expected to develop and maintain good working relationships.

For more complex issues you will be required to analyse problems, identifying the cause, and using your judgement and experience decide whether to attempt resolution or to escalates to a senior member of the team. Throughout this process, clear documentation and audit trails must be created; you will therefore need to be capable of writing clear and concise action plans and reports.

You will also support the delivery and maintenance of our clinical trial management systems, both hardware and software, by assisting senior members of the programming team in their ongoing activities. Consequently, you will need to be able to communicate complex technical problems and requirements in an understandable fashion to non‑technical staff, including team leads, academic and administrative staff.

Main Duties

• Handle tier one support requests on behalf of the programming team and document more complex issues, and by taking ownership of and tracking issues through to resolution ensure all stakeholders are kept up to date.
• Investigate and analyse problems using own knowledge and expertise to facilitate the resolution of support requests if possible, or sufficiently document all necessary requirements for escalation.
• Monitor GitLab issues for in‑maintenance trials and creating new issues when system modification requests are received.
• Manage and maintain records on active clinical trial management systems and linked applications, assist in the generation of documentation and reports about these systems.
• Assist in performing system checks and backup monitoring to help ensure the integrity and safety of in‑house systems and maintain records of checks undertaken.
• Assist senior programming team members to:
  • Generate system validation plans for quality assurance.
  • Create and perform test plans for data requirements.
  • Assist with the documentation of systems functional and data requirements.
  • Organise system validation activities.
  • Participate in reviews of applications with relevant trials and statistics staff during development.
• Liaise with Trials and Statistical staff to confirm requirements specifications fit the user needs.
• Participate in team discussions and reviews of procedures, technical guides, and system documentation and contribute to the development and updating of these as directed.
• Interpret and provide advice on technical or procedure manuals to non‑technical users and provide training/coaching as appropriate, including training and induction of new BCTU staff.
• Develop own technical knowledge and skills either under the guidance of other staff or as agreed as part of a development plan.
• Carry out other duties and responsibilities commensurate with the post on the direction of the Programming Team Leader or Unit Directors.
• Support the delivery of clinical research in accordance with Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and University policies and procedures, (including, but not limited to the University’s Data Protection Policy, Information Security Policy and Code of Practice for Research) in order to protect the research subject and the quality of each study.
• Supporting equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• A degree, preferably in the physical or social sciences, equivalent professional qualifications or demonstrable related experience.
• A good general knowledge on current trends in IT would be useful.
• Some knowledge of research and electronic data capture would be useful.
• The ability to work effectively as a member of a team.
• Good time management skills and ability to work to deadlines.
• Willingness and ability to acquire new knowledge and skills.
• Excellent communication, coupled with a strong customer service orientation, and the ability to tailor responses to specific technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to prioritise and schedule workload in the face of conflicting demands.
• Structured and methodical approach to problem solving.
• Some exposure to or experience of data processing and report writing.
• Ideally conversant with:
  • Microsoft Windows operating systems
  • Microsoft office 20xx, particularly MS Excel.
• A willingness to adopt and champion new ways of working.
• A willingness to coach and train colleagues in your own areas of expertise.
• Experience in any of the following areas would be an advantage:
  • Some exposure to server administration
  • Additional operating systems, e.g. Mac OS and Ubuntu
  • Web application development
  • Experience of writing knowledge base articles of other relevant authoring.
• 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 have no direct financial or staff management responsibility, it is instead focused on providing support to end users of clinical trial management systems, the Programming team and working collaboratively with colleagues to find and implement solutions.

Planning and organising

The role is required to work independently on tasks of varying length and complexity and using own initiative and knowledge to recognise issues that need urgent attention and prioritise those tasks within own workload. There will also be project management of allocated tasks with support from senior members of the team.

Will be required to keep Programming Team Leader and relevant trials staff informed about project progress.

Problem solving and decision making

Without reference to others:

• Handle incoming support requests and prioritise appropriately
• Escalate issues as necessary when additional support is required
• Apply skills and knowledge acquired through training and on job experience to analyse problems and identify and deploy solutions
• Keep team lead and senior programmers updated on task status as necessary
• Keep end users updated on task status

After consulting others:

• Research issues and generate solutions independently
• Generate documentation and test plans for system or end user testing
• Assist trials teams in the use and onboarding of staff with CTMSs.
• Perform systems testing

Would be referred to someone else:

• Any technical system implementation or design issues (for example non‑standard data structures), that require guidance from senior members of the team, or referral to senior management level.
• Any technical problems that imply insufficient physical resources, i.e. not enough server space or power

Internal and external relationships

Programming Team Leader

• The post holder will need to keep apprised of critical or urgent tasks, will report to for tasks allocation and prioritisation. Will be the point of contact for any additional requirements the post holder may need, in relation to carry out task and undertaking training.

Senior Programming team members

• Will be required to consult with or elevate issues for their attention and collaborate with on deploying solutions. Senior members of the team may provide training and collaborate on common projects to help the post holder understand BCTU programming development processes and terminology.

Trial Statistician

• Interaction will be required to complete documentation and confirm data and systems requirements meet required specification.

Trials staff.

• The post holder will interact with trial teams, likely daily, to support requests, generate reports and accurately document issues or work requirements, provide feedback and task status updates, and possibly provide guidance and/or training on effective use of existing documentation and systems.

Further particulars

Further particulars can be found here.

Informal enquiries to Naomi Campton, email: [e-mail]

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.