Position Details
College of Arts and Law - Music and African Studies and Anthropology
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £33,002 to £35,608 with potential progression once in post to £39,906
Grade: 6
Part Time, 0.6 FTE (22.5 hours per week)
Fixed Term contract up to September 2031
Closing date: 17th August 2026
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.
Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham
Background
The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research. We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Professional Services put students at the heart of all they do and enable an exceptional educational experience. They provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally. They ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence. Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery of the University’s objectives, and helping everyone to understand the broader context within which we work.
Role Summary
You will serve as Project Officer across two European Commission funded ERC Consolidator Grants, based in the departments of Music (After Sampling Culture: Synthetic media as culture in 21st century music, PI Christopher Haworth) and African Studies and Anthropology (Blueprints of Change: Large-scale demolition and the search for urban alternatives, PI Marco Di Nunzio). You will work closely with the PIs in managing and delivering elements of these projects, as well as devising and delivering project plans. This role will see you operate across diverse business functions (HR, finance, procurement) and working on a number of key tasks, including budget management, reporting to key stakeholders, grant administration, events planning, and project communications.
Main Duties
Project Officers will manage smaller projects in their entirety or manage elements of larger projects or assist in the management of one or more larger projects through the provision of well-developed and timely project management support. You will be expected to work proactively and use your initiative and planning skills to set your own priorities to ensure progress is maintained as expected, identify any issue and propose solutions.
- To support Research Project delivery, Project Boards, workstreams and working groups within an overall project or manage elements of larger projects or smaller projects on your own.
- Support may include some or all of the following:
- carrying out project planning activities;
- identifying milestones which will need to be adhered to;
- data collection and analysis;
- milestone tracking/key performance indicator tracking;
- developing and proposing solutions for any issues;
- recommending improvements to project management;
- preparing progress reports for project boards or other meetings;
- assisting in budgetary monitoring and management, including reporting;
- assisting with stakeholder management, developing and maintaining regular contact with internal and external stakeholders to understand requirements;
- acting as an administrative point of contact between the Birmingham-based project team and collaborators in Ethiopia and Indonesia (Blueprint, Di Nunzio)
- assessing and escalating issues and risks as appropriate;
- making travel arrangements for conference and research travel and ensuring all travel is within budget and value for money;
- assistance with the hiring of new staff to work on the project;
- liaising with external partners (including universities and NGOs abroad) and members of Project Advisory Boards
- Contribute to developing communications plans, presentations, and promoting the projects and outcomes of projects/workstreams.
- Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of project management methodologies.
- Determine short term priorities for own work, ensuring you maximise quality, efficiency and continuity.
- Assist in the evaluation and review of projects.
- You may be asked to manage other colleagues working on the project/s and this will include allocating work.
- Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
- Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
- Any other duties commensurate with the grade.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
- Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications). Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a similar role will be required.
- Significant practical experience in a similar role, experience of using project management tools.
- Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly, and to analyse information and data.
- Highly proficient IT skills, including the wider MS Office suite of programmes including excel and Powerpoint.
- Ability to understand policy, processes and procedures, but also to recommend improvements and implement changes.
- Excellent analytical skills used to produce reports, identify issues and resolve them decisively.
- Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
- A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
- A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
- Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
- Experience working in a multi-cultural environment and navigating cultural difference.
- Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.
Informal enquiries to Sarah Jeffery, email: s.jeffery@bham.ac.uk
View our staff values and behaviours here
Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.
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. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.