IT Support Technician - IT Services - 101521 - Grade 4

Position Details

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,166 to £28,768, with potential progression once in post to £32,145

Grade: 4

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 12th June 2025

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.

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.

Background

IT Support Technicians will play a key role within a committed IT Support team providing desktop support - which will involve extensive customer face to face interactions and visits to deskside or providing remote computing support to staff and students at the University. Using your knowledge and experience you will be required to analyse problems, identifying the cause and using your judgement to restore function in line with University C&IT standards. You will need to be able to communicate complex IT technical problems and requirements in an understandable fashion to non-technical staff, including Department managers, academic and administrative staff.

Role Summary

• Be fully conversant with all areas of desktop IT support including Windows desktop operating systems and Microsoft applications.
• Troubleshooting of client side faults and application of fixes to ensure continuity of network services solution, referring to more senior team members for specialist advice.
• Ensuring client desktop connectivity to the campus network in accordance with the University’s networking standards, policy and infrastructure.
• Setting up new users, printers and general system administration to ensure access to all networked servers and systems.
• Obtaining quotes for computer equipment and software with guidance from more senior team members, and make recommendations on repair, retention or replacement.
• Support the desktop service on an ongoing basis, working closely with the central IT Service Desk and senior team members where appropriate to ensure smooth resolution of support calls and ensuring that resolution details are recorded with the Service Desk for future reference.
• Providing ad hoc advice to PC users, either verbally or via written documentation.
• You may be involved, as appropriate, in the support and development of the undergraduate IT cluster management. This will include support, maintenance, upgrade, development and liaising with departmental staff regarding cluster availability for taught courses.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for ordering tasks within your workload, and can refer to your line manager if required. You will co-ordinate with other team members to meet overall ITS priorities.
• Proactively liaising with members of other technical teams to aid in the timely resolution of IT faults, ensuring resolution details are recorded for future reference.
• Troubleshooting problems, assessing them and identifying solutions. You will refer more complex problems to more senior team members for in-depth specialist advice when necessary.
• You will use your knowledge to deal with the main areas of desktop IT support.
• Making an important contribution to the collective knowledge of the team by staying up to date with new technology, and maintaining an up to date overview of hardware and software relating to teaching and learning at the University.
• Undertaking such other duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work of IT Services.
• Supporting equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• 5 GCSEs at grade C or above, including Mathematics and English (or equivalent level 2 vocational qualifications including demonstrable examples of the required level of literacy and numeracy).
• Experience of working on a complex desktop support environment or Service Desk involving user support and triaging of calls, utilising skills from problem analysis through to implementation of solutions. A Microsoft qualification or other industry recognized IT qualifications would be an advantage.
• The ability to work effectively as a member of a team towards quality service goals and deadlines.
• 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.
• Knowledge of email and email protocols, and of wired and wireless networking protocols.
• Knowledge of security solutions for the protection against and removal of viruses and malware.
• A willingness to adopt and champion new ways of working.
• A willingness to coach and train colleagues in your own areas of expertise.
• 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.
• Conversant with: Microsoft Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office 20xx and MS Outlook (Exchange) Client.
• Specialised knowledge and support experience in any of the following areas would be an advantage: Mac OS 10.x, SCCM, and Desktop Applications e.g. Adobe Acrobat Professional. Active Directory User management, VB scripting, PC, printers and peripheral hardware, TCP/IP, DHCP and mobile devices (smartphones, tablets etc.).

Dimensions

You will have no direct financial or staff management responsibility. The role is focused on the delivery of a quality service to customers, working collaboratively with colleagues.

Planning and Organising

You will be working in response to more complex customer enquiries and you will need to prioritise your own workload in order to deliver on schedule and at quality.

Problem Solving and decision making

You will use your knowledge and expertise to analyse problems and identify and deploy solutions. For more complex issues you will refer them on to more experienced team members or specialist teams. You will be able to proactively suggest improvements.

Internal and External relationships

You will liaise with a wide range of staff and students and colleagues in the wider IT team and the University. You will also be expected to coordinate with external service providers where appropriate in order to ensure the delivery of a quality service.

Informal enquiries to Kyle Smith, email: k.smith.5@bham.ac.uk or Kyle Melville K.melville@bham.ac.uk

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.