Senior Administrator and PA - CMH - Research and Knowledge Transfer - 107323 - Grade 5 in Birmingham

Position Details

CMH - Research and Knowledge Transfer, College of Medicine and Health

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full‑time starting salary: £30,062 – £31,900, with potential progression to £35,883.

Grade: 5

Contract: Fixed‑term, full‑time until May 2027 (part‑time may be considered).

Closing date: 30 April 2026.

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity.

Background

You will work closely with programme managers, academics and clinical research fellows, and a diverse range of stakeholders to support the AI and Digital Health Research and Policy Group. Tasks include coordinating activities and events, managing communication across external and internal channels, preparing reports, and overseeing wider logistics for the group.

Role Summary

This is an exciting opportunity for a highly organised and proactive individual to support the delivery of the AI and Digital Health Research and Policy Group, a research and policy group focused on the evaluation, regulation and implementation of AI health technologies. In addition, the role will provide diary and personal support for Professor Alastair Denniston. The role requires strong organisational skills, attention to detail, and excellent interpersonal skills with demonstrable ability to build and manage positive working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders. The role is largely independent but works well as part of a team.

Main Duties

• Undertake complex diary management and meeting planning, usually 6–12 months ahead, making decisions on the best use of time.
• Proactive inbox management, with confidence to make decisions on behalf of others where appropriate.
• Dealing with a wide range of more complex enquiries and correspondence independently or exercising judgement to redirect them to senior colleagues or other departments within the University.
• If in a supervisory role, line‑manage all staff and coordinate and prioritise work, normally as head of a small team or sub‑unit.
• If not in a supervisory role, act as a role model and coach members of the team.
• Maintain high‑profile working relationships with key stakeholders, fielding enquiries and ensuring appropriate information is disseminated.
• Proactive preparation and collation of meeting‑related papers, working collaboratively to determine required information in advance of a meeting, articulating clear deadlines and proactively chasing where necessary.
• May include attending meetings to provide high‑quality committee support, taking minutes and following up.
• Arrange complex UK and overseas travel, including booking flights, hotels, transfers, and planning itineraries, ensuring best use of time and budgetary constraints.
• Organisation of events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, managing bookings, coordinating colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
• Collate, analyse and interpret data; identify and resolve data issues.
• Manage smaller projects on own initiative and conduct desk research and source data from internal and external sources for wider projects.
• Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
• Will be responsible for one or more of the following: Monitoring budgets, processing payments, authorising expenditure, raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget.
• Procuring goods and services through the University system.
• Updating and writing content for the department’s communications (e.g., intranet pages).
• Dealing with health and safety and facilities issues.
• HR‑related tasks such as managing staff absence, induction, or dealing with leavers.
• Dealing with arrangements for international visitors.
• Monitoring internal procedures/compliance and ensuring they are followed and disseminated.

Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Person Specification

• Educated to A-Level standard or equivalent Level 3 qualification, or relevant experience evidence for the role.
• Minimum grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent Level 2 qualification.
• Highly proficient IT skills; able to handle complex electronic diaries and emails, MS Office suite including Excel and PowerPoint, and some ERP experience.
• Confident to learn new IT skills quickly.
• Proven ability to plan and anticipate requirements, proactively manage own and often others’ workloads, progress tasks concurrently and meet deadlines.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences and meet deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and always provide excellent customer service.
• High degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy; ability to exercise discretion regarding sensitive information.
• High initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and self‑motivating approach.
• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation and develop an understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
• Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply them.
• Understands the importance of equality 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 you to exercise personal initiative within and beyond the department. You may manage a team or budgets.

Planning and Organising

This role will require you to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium–longer‑term horizons without daily supervision. You may manage other staff’s workloads.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

You will work under the direction of the senior manager you support, but you will have a significant degree of autonomy. You will be expected to resolve complex queries and manage the workload of others or coach them to achieve results. You will take day‑to‑day decisions on diary, emails, preparing papers and booking travel.

Internal and External Relationships

You will liaise with a wide range of internal colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University‑wide and with external stakeholders.