Student Casual – Research Assistant – Birmingham Business School – Grade 6 – 907173

Please note that this vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. We advise you to submit your application promptly.

Our offer to you

At the University of Birmingham Worklink is the dedicated student employment service which helps students to find flexible well paid part-time roles that fit around your studies. Each year the University invests more than 2.5 million to employ 3000 of our own students in a wide range of roles supporting our student community into part-time work. Roles available via Worklink include a range of positions including administrative roles support staff such as cleaners or baristas research roles and many more.

Jobs through Worklink help you to gain work experience develop skills relevant for your future career and improve your soft and hard skills in a professional setting. Enhance your CV and get valuable experience ready for graduate roles and feel connected to your university and local community.

Our jobs are flexible and can be scheduled around your academic commitments so you can focus on your studies first. Our team are passionate about supporting students into work. Worklink are based in a central location on campus which is easily accessible for students and can also be contacted online.

Find out more about working through Worklinkhere or via thestudent intranet.

About the Role

We are seeking a motivated PhD student to work as a Research Assistant on a pedagogic research project entitled:

Becoming an Accountant: How Degree Programmes Support Professional Identity Formation through Skills Recognition and Reflection.

The project explores how higher education programmes help students recognise articulate and reflect on the professional skills they develop and how this supports employability professional identity formation and lifelong learning.

While the project is situated within accounting education candidates do not need to be from Accounting or Finance. This role may particularly suit PhD students from Education Business & Management Social Sciences or related disciplines especially those with an interest in:

• employability and graduate skills
• reflective learning and professional identity
• curriculum and programme design
• lifelong learning and professional development

What youll gain

This role offers:

• paid research experience linked to funded pedagogic scholarship
• insight into employability-focused curriculum research
• opportunities to develop transferable research skills relevant to academic educational development or policy careers
• experience working on a time-bound clearly scoped research project

Main duties

The Research Assistant will support the preparation of a targeted desktop literature review including:

• systematic literature searching across education and professional learning research
• screening and organising academic sources
• structured data extraction using a predefined framework
• supporting synthesis of findings to identify key themes and pedagogic approaches

All work will be desk-based and can be carried out flexibly around doctoral study commitments.

Required knowledge skills qualifications & experience

Essential:

• Currently registered as a PhD student at the time of appointment
• Strong academic reading and synthesis skills
• Well organised detail-oriented and able to work independently

Desirable:

• Experience of literature reviews or qualitative research
• Interest in employability skills development or reflective learning
• Familiarity with education or pedagogic research (broadly defined)

Further details

Please submit:

• a short CV
• a brief statement (no more than one page) outlining your interest in the role and relevant experience

Interviews will take place during week commencing 23 March 2026

For any informal queries please contact Stephanie Tiller ().

The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time for a maximum of 13 consecutive weeks. If your application is successful and your course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g. PGT PGR or PhD student) you and your supervisor must formally agree vacation periods if this role exceeds 20 hours per week. In addition to this please be aware if you are an international student you will be required to apply to the Registry for the appropriate authorised absence.

You are only eligible to apply to this role if you are a current University of Birmingham student. If you are not a University of Birmingham student your application will not be considered.

To work you will need to carry out a right to work checks will need to be completed prior to work commencing.

Regarding the use of AI in applications we review hundreds of applications and shortlist candidates based on their unique perspective motivations and potential.Cover letters generated through or edited by AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT or CoPilot) are easy to identify. They produce generic answers and will not score highly enough to progress. You may use AI tools for research but all written content in your application must be your own work. Authenticity and originality are key to standing out in this process.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive were unable to contact all applicants individually. You can check the progress of your application by logging into the Worklink jobs portal using the same email address you used to apply. If you havent heard back within six weeks of the closing date please assume your application has been unsuccessful.