Academic Support Administrator Business School Grade 4

Role Summary

To provide proactive administrative support in the relevant department, working as part of a team or on own initiative. You will have the ability to manage your work without needing to refer to others for most of your time. In order to flexibly use resource you may be given the opportunity to work in different areas of the department or wider University.

Administrators may work in any area of the University; with large groupings in HR, Finance, and School/College Hubs. You will be able to develop a wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, and may also have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within a team.

• You will act as a point of contact to provide accurate and timely information and advice to internal and external customers and stakeholders on University processes and procedures, answering queries promptly, providing guidance and resolving queries from initial contact to resolution. This will include recognising when queries need to be referred elsewhere.
• Regularly communicate relevant information to students, staff and external contacts.
• Provide administrative support for diary or event planning.
• Process data (which may be financial, HR, student-related or other), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and escalating any issues as appropriate.
• Use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, manipulate, analyse and interpret sets of data, and produce routine reports.
• Maintain working relationship with key stakeholders, fielding queries, receiving and dealing with any disputes or complaints and resolving promptly.
• Offer advice and support to others on area of activity.
• Review processes and tasks and proactively offer suggestions for improvement and sharing best practice as appropriate.
• As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

• Evidence of the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• Good IT skills with working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software.
• Ability to take responsibility for specific tasks, carrying out duties without needing to refer to others, with scope for some choice and using your own judgment.
• Ability to work on your own initiative.
• Ability to proactively contribute to improving processes and for proposing new ways of working.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with others.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work proactively, independently and as part of a team.
• A good understanding of how to deliver excellent customer service.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems e.g. student databases/finance record systems/HR systems or equivalent, and an aptitude for learning new IT packages and systems.
• Experience of supporting committees in a secretarial capacity.
• The ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.
• An understanding of the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures and how to respond to issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

You will not be required to line manage anyone in this role or manage a budget.

You will be required to manage and prioritise a varied workload to deliver within required time frames. There is also a need to maintain an awareness of activity across the department and wider University as appropriate.

You will be working under the direction of a senior manager, but with the autonomy to deliver the outputs required. You will be working within the framework of existing policies, processes and procedures for the department. You will take day to day decisions on what advice to give and for responding to and resolving queries.

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, and external stakeholders as well with an expectation on maintaining good working relationships with all.

Informal enquiries to Candice Hipkiss, email:

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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…