CRDC Senior Administrator - College of Medicine and Health - 105867 - Grade 5

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 April 2032 Closing date: 19th June 2025 'Open House' Drop In Session: We will be holding an ‘open house’ drop in session at the University’s Exchange building, in Centenary Square, Birmingham, between 10am and 5pm on Friday 6th June 2025. If you’re interested in working at the University of Birmingham and perhaps have a few questions, this is an opportunity to meet colleagues in the Recruitment team. It will be a relaxed and informal event – you can drop in at any time. 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 University of Birmingham is excited to support the NIHR Central and North West Midlands Commercial Research Delivery Centre (C&NWM CRDC), working across the region we will support the growth of commercial research, increasing access to clinical trials for our patients. As a new high-profile regional programme, there will be significant work to establish the programme systems and processes, across a variety of organisations. This post is employed by the College of Medicine and Health at the University of Birmingham but working closely with the host organisation (Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital) and other partners/ collaborators across the region. The post holder is key to supporting coordination and delivery of these activities through providing administrative support to Senior Managers, and a variety of related committees – significant experience of remote/ digital ways of working will be essential i.e. Microsoft Teams, SharePoint or Google Drive and Sites. Duties will include proactively managing the meeting schedule, ensuring meaningful opportunities for stakeholder participation and engagement through timely planning, preparation and circulation of document and minuting/ action chasing. Developing processes which support programme administration and providing administrative support to Senior Managers i.e. event planning, committee meetings, training sessions, workshops, and diary management. The post holder will be expected to develop, review and maintain up-to-date filing systems and contribute to maintaining databases. Take an active administrative role and be responsible for drafting and editing documents which have complex formats and using scientific and medical terminology. Supporting a wider Management Team with relevant additional activities i.e. minute taking, attending and supporting events. As a regional programme it is anticipated that this is a hybrid role, working on site and remotely in line with the University’s hybrid working policy, but with a flexible approach to programme delivery i.e. supporting face-to-face events/ meetings across the region as required. Role Summary As a Senior Administrator within a team/department 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 a team. In order to flexibly use resource you may be given the opportunity to work in different areas of the department or wider University. Senior Administrators may work in any area of the University; with large groupings in HR, Finance, and School/College Hubs. 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 and Hospital 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 or Hospital 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, 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 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. Further particulars can be found here Informal enquiries to Amy Smith, email: a.smith.23@bham.ac.uk 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 .