Student Casual - Administrator: Letters from the Future - GEES - LES - Grade 4 - 907298 in Birmingham

Location & Role Details

• College: College of Life and Environmental Sciences
• Department: Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Position type: Part time
• Duration: Target start date 01/05/2025
• Hourly rate: £15.14 per hour plus holiday entitlement
• Number of positions: 1
• Closing date: 30/04/2026 at 23:55

Note: This vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. Submit your application promptly.

Job Context

This role will support the Letters from the Future project, funded by the Sustainability Project Fund. In this project we will coordinate two workshops during the UoB Xtra period. In the sessions participants will learn about climate change and then craft letters from the year 2050, written back to us today, with the focus on inspiring action and illustrating a hopeful future. Following the events we plan to have a session in which participants can record themselves reading their letter, if they choose. We are recruiting an administrator to help organise and deliver these sessions.

Expected Responsibilities

• Coordinating webpage and digital resource design and development
• Administration, including advertising/promoting the events
• Support during the events
• Data analysis of participant feedback

Candidate Suitability & Availability

This role would suit an applicant who is enthusiastic about sustainability, and who is confident interacting with groups and leading discussions. The applicant must be available during UoB Xtra (8th – 26th June 2026) and particularly for the workshops, which will be:

• Wednesday 10th June 11:00‑13:00
• Thursday 18th June 14:00‑16:00

Job Summary

To provide proactive administrative support in the relevant department, working as part of a team or on own initiative. You will manage your work independently and may work in different areas of the department or wider University.

Main Duties

• Act as a point of contact, providing accurate and timely information and advice to internal and external customers and stakeholders on University processes and procedures.
• Regularly communicate relevant information to students, staff and external contacts.
• Provide administrative support for diary or event planning.
• Process data, monitor accuracy, chase missing information and escalate issues as appropriate.
• Use a variety of complex University systems to research, manipulate, analyse and interpret data and produce routine reports.
• Maintain working relationship with key stakeholders, fielding queries, receiving and dealing with any disputes or complaints and resolving promptly.
• Offer advice and support to others on area of activity.
• Review processes and tasks and proactively offer suggestions for improvement and share best practice.
• As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• Support equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Evidence of the skills and ability to undertake the role, including experience with Excel (data analysis) and Canva (for Social Media)
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• Good IT skills with working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software.
• Ability to take responsibility for specific tasks, carrying out duties without need to refer to others.
• Ability to work on your own initiative.
• Proactively contribute to improving processes and propose new ways of working.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with others.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work proactively, independently and as part of a team.
• A good understanding of how to deliver excellent customer service.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems (e.g. student databases, finance record systems, HR systems) or equivalent, and an aptitude for learning new IT packages and systems.
• Ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.
• An understanding of 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

You will not be required to line manage anyone in this role or manage a budget.

Planning and Organising

You will be required to manage and prioritise a varied workload to deliver within required time frames. There is also a need to maintain an awareness of activity across the department and wider University as appropriate.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

You will be working under the direction of a senior manager, but with the autonomy to deliver the outputs required, within the framework of existing policies, processes and procedures for the department. You will take day to day decisions on what advice to give and for responding to and resolving queries.

Contact

For any informal queries, please contact Ruth Geen (r.geen@bham.ac.uk).

Student Working Hours & Restrictions

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.

Eligibility

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.

Workplace Checks

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

Application Policy – AI Use

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.

Application Progress

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we’re 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 haven’t heard back within six weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has been unsuccessful.