Access Officer (Partnerships and Summer Schools) in Sheffield

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world-class university. We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement, a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.

Overview: Committed to delivering activities that follow a robust, evidence-based curriculum, you will be passionate about fairness and transparency, ensuring our missions to enhance equality, diversity and inclusion is embedded in the targeting and delivery of activity that is continually developing, impactful and demonstrative of sector best practice. As an Access Officer, you will be responsible for the development and delivery of our expanding partnership and summer school activity. This will include overseeing operations for a number of partnership projects, such as The Brilliant Club and Sutton Trust. You will also support regional and philanthropically funded national projects such as our Access to Sheffield Summer School. The role will focus initially on prospective student engagement but you will be committed to cross-team working, contributing to service wide and cross-department planning. You will be integral to ensuring that cross-programme initiatives, such as mentoring and tutoring, are embedded for your participants engaging with our interventions. You will also represent the University’s Access Service working collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders and partners to effectively deliver projects, sharing and implementing best practice.

Main Duties And Responsibilities:

• Contribute to and influence the development of activity and practices, aligned to our curriculum standards which offer targeted support to specific underrepresented groups, encouraging and increasing recruitment to the University of Sheffield and access to Higher Education generally.
• Oversee the operational and financial management of target Access Service initiatives in line with University procedures.
• Liaise with schools, colleges and our marketing services to generate interest in Access Service programmes and activity, ensuring that where appropriate programme participants are selected in line with the Access Services targeting framework.
• Liaise and build relationships with both external partners, and the wider University body, attending meetings as required to support and represent operational matters.
• Contribute to the recruitment, training and supervision of Student Ambassadors and others who will support the delivery of activities.
• Ensure all designated activity, both internal and partnership collaborative activity, is recorded, evaluated and reviewed against University of Sheffield and regulatory frameworks to drive positive outcomes and contribute to impact reporting and publications.
• Provide information, advice and guidance to prospective students, their parents/carers and other influencers, acting as a positive role model to support their understanding of the benefits of Higher Education.
• Support wider department activity, representing the University at higher education fairs, open days and other on or off campus events for prospective students.
• This will involve some Saturday and evening work for which time off in lieu will be given.
• Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.

Person Specification: Our diverse community of staff and students recognises the unique abilities, backgrounds, and beliefs of all. We foster a culture where everyone feels they belong and is respected. Even if your past experience doesn’t match perfectly with this role's criteria, your contribution is valuable, and we encourage you to apply. Please ensure that you reference the application criteria in the application statement when you apply.

• Criteria Essential Or Desirable Stage(s) assessed at
• Educated to degree level or equivalent (or with equivalent experience) - Essential Application Form
• Excellent IT Skills including experience of Microsoft Office and online systems such as Google. Expertise in email and internet systems and an aptitude for work within University or similar organisational database - Essential Application Form / Interview
• An understanding of the barriers that might prevent underrepresented groups from progressing to Higher Education and an ability to propose innovative skills or activity based solutions driving these forward into deliverable interventions - Essential Application Form / Interview
• An awareness of Child Safeguarding and Data Protection Regulations as well as a recognition of their importance, including the ability to deal with issues confidentially and in sensitive situations - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Ability to understand and interpret the requirements of others, developing strong and positive relationships and implementing activities that meet the needs of key stakeholders - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to effectively motivate and support others to foster collaborative working, including the ability to direct team members as necessary to meet Service objectives - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Ability to cultivate high-value external partnerships, building and maintaining relationships, while robustly defending the core business needs of the Access Service - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to manage concurrent projects in an agile way, providing solutions to problems, making effective decisions and knowing when to elevate matters for support - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Excellent communication and written English skills, including the ability to draft a variety of publications, produce concise reports and briefings or presentations to be shared internally and externally to the University - Essential Application Form / Interview
• Full, valid UK driving licence - Desirable Application Form/ Interview

Further Information: Grade 6 Salary £32,080 - £36,636 with potential to progress to £39,906 through sustained exceptional contribution. Work arrangement Full-time. Line manager Access Manager (Partnerships & Projects).

For informal enquiries about this job contact Ella-Rosa Twyman, Access Manager (Partnerships & Projects) on e.twyman@sheffield.ac.uk.

Next steps in the recruitment process: It is anticipated that the selection process will take place in the week after the job closing date. This will consist of an interview and activity/presentation. We plan to let candidates know if they have progressed to the selection stage on the week commencing 9th March 2026 and hope to conduct interviews by 23 March 2026. If you need any support, equipment or adjustments to enable you to participate in any element of the recruitment process you can contact Ella-Rosa Twyman, on e.twyman@sheffield.ac.uk.

We are a Disability Confident Employer. If you have a disability and meet the essential criteria for this job you will be invited to take part in the next stage of the selection process. An enhanced DBS check will be needed for this role. Possession of a criminal record is not an automatic bar to employment at the University of Sheffield. We recognise the value of steady employment in the rehabilitation process and examine each case in its own right.

Closing Date: 08/03/2026.