Project Admin Assistant - School of Geography, Earth and Environmental SciencesGrade 5

Position Details

School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range 29647 to 31460 with potential progression once in post to 35388

Grade: 5

Part Time (21 hours per week)

Fixed Term contract up to August 2029

Closing date: 6th October 2025

UK travel may be required for this role

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 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 almost 5000professionalservices 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 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 areand 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 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 campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool shopsplaces to eat and drinkour own art gallery museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about thebenefits of working for the Universityof Birmingham

Role Summary

The post holder will be based in the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research and the School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences and the main duties are to provide administrative support for the FutureForests Innovative Doctoral Training Network project involving principal investigators and associated project partners across Europe. The facilitation assignments include communication with project partners organization of training schools workshops and project meetings at the University of Birmingham and across Europe with project partners managing and monitoring the financial budget developing and maintaining project website and social media accounts organizing inbound and outbound visits of staff and students for training schools and project meetings support in event planning elsewhere and local hospitality supporting hiring process of PhD students managing project progress reports and records and administer expense reimbursements for project staff and partners during training schools and project meetings. The post holder will also be required to facilitate and support doctoral researchers and their supervisors of the FutureForest project at the Birmingham Institute of Forest Researchs Free Air CO2 Enrichment (BIFoR-FACE).The post holder will be dealing with events from time to time thus will need to work flexibly when events are held in the evening and/or at weekends both in the UK and at partner institutions in Europe.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for all aspect of event administration including devising promotional materials social media posts and management organising invitations and monitoring responses venue identification and booking and booking catering. You will need to co-ordinate with colleagues in order to ensure smooth and successful delivery of training and meetings events.
• You will write all event-related communication (hard and soft copy) ensuring that it complies with University branding guidelines is written in a language appropriate to the target audience and sent via the most appropriate means of communication.
• You will devise methods to ensure the FutureForest Project receives targeted feedback from attendees; you will consider this and make recommendations for future events.
• You will be responsible for recording event statistics and measuring these against agreed key performance indicators (KPIs) such as achieving attendance rates cost per head targets etc.
• Supporting the development and delivery of multi-channel communication activities to key stakeholders (e.g. PhD students associated partners and targeted staff).
• Coordination of communications briefings web pages newsletters and social media campaigns as appropriate.
• Developing content for project webpages which will include you regularly reviewing pages and ensuring content is suitable as per the FutureForest project dissemination programmes.
• Dealing with a wide range of more complex enquiries and correspondence independently or exercising judgement to redirect them to project leads and supervisors engaged directly in the FutureForest project.
• Providing other administrative support for the FutureForest team including arranging travel servicing meetings and diary management.
• Monitoring budgets including processing payments authorising expenditure raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget.
• 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. A University degree is desirable but not essential.
• 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 (such as webpage maintenance and development) 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 ofequality 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 FutureForests project investigators at the University and with external project partners and contacts.

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 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 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 Sami Ullah email:

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 everyoneon our website.