Facilities Assistant

Edinburgh, Fountain Bridge

Salary: £28,500 plus performance-related annual bonus and benefits (please see benefits below).

Contract: Permanent, full time, 42.5 hours per week

Required Days of Work: Monday - Friday

Working Hours: 9am – 6pm

Where Ambition Lives

At Vita Student, we create more than premium student accommodation; we create unforgettable experiences for a global community of ambitious students.

From industry-leading spaces and first-class services to vibrant communities and exceptional support, everything we do is designed to help our residents thrive. Our residences are home to students from around the world, and we're proud to provide an environment where they can live without limits and focus on achieving their ambitions.

The Role

Our students come to Vita Student to chase big ambitions. Your job is to make sure nothing in the building gets in their way.

This is a hands-on caretaker and handyperson role. If a shower won’t drain, a light has gone, a door won’t shut or a wall has picked up a scuff, that’s yours to sort. You’ll spend your day on your feet with your tool bag, moving around the building, not sat behind a desk.

A Typical Day

No two days are exactly the same, but most follow a simple rhythm:

First thing: the building walk. Walk the building with the site management team and spot anything in the communal spaces that isn’t up to Vita standard: a chipped wall, a patch that needs painting, a light that’s out, a broken chair or a kitchen appliance that’s stopped working. Write the list, then work through it.

Plant room check. A daily walk round the plant room, looking for leaks or anything that doesn’t look or sound right, and reporting it straight away.

Building Management System (BMS) check. A quick look at the BMS for alarms or anything showing as offline. If something needs a specialist, you flag it and we bring in an engineer. You’re the eyes and ears, not the engineer, and we’ll train you.

Weekly and monthly safety checks. Test the fire bell and a call point every week, carry out emergency lighting flick tests and sprinkler flow switch checks, and complete any other routine safety system tests you’ve been trained on. Record everything in the right log. Simple, important, and fully trained.

The rest of the day: student tickets. This is the heart of the job. Students report problems in their studios through our ticketing system, and you’ll work through your tickets every day, keeping your own list moving without anyone needing to chase you.

In between: inside and outside upkeep. Painting, the bin store, jet washing and keeping the grounds tidy, planned around your tickets.

The Jobs You’ll Do Most

• Help keep bathrooms in great shape by clearing blocked showers and sinks, fixing dripping taps, stopping running toilets, and refreshing worn sealant or grout.
• Keep spaces bright and welcoming by replacing failed or flickering lightbulbs, passing more complex electrical issues to a qualified electrician.
• Sort out everyday niggles like sticking doors, loose handles, or door locks that need fresh batteries.
• Take a look at appliances that aren’t working as they should, from fridges and ovens to microwaves, hobs, washing machines and extractor fans, arranging repairs or replacements where needed.
• Put things right when furniture needs attention, whether that's a wobbly desk chair, a broken drawer, curtains off their track, or new furniture to assemble.
• Freshen up living spaces by filling and painting scuffed walls and securing loose floor trims.
• Investigate heating and window issues, such as cold radiators or windows that won't close properly, and bring in specialist contractors when required.

Inside and Out

• Keeping bin stores clean, tidy and under control, including washing them down.
• Jet washing entrances, paths, courtyards and bin areas.
• Weeding, litter picking and keeping planters, borders and outdoor spaces looking sharp, including grass cutting and hedge trimming where the building has them.
• Painting and decorating, from quick touch-ups to repainting walls, doors and woodwork in studios, corridors and communal areas.

Looking After Our Students

• Respond to every ticket within our response times, so no student is left wondering whether anyone has seen it.
• Get it right first time wherever you can. If you can’t, let the student know what happens next and when.
• Only close a ticket when the job is genuinely done, and leave the studio as tidy as you found it.
• Treat every studio as someone’s home. Many of our students are living away from home for the first time, and many have travelled from the other side of the world to be here.

What This Role Is, And Isn’t

We’d rather be honest now than surprise you later. Everything on this page is part of the job, from fixing a studio shower to washing down the bin store or weeding the front entrance.

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