College Project Manager

Position Details

College of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822

Grade: 7

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to March 2028

Closing date: 3rd December 2025

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.

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

Role Summary

To manage and support specific projects and initiatives across the College, as directed by the College Senior Leadership Team. The portfolio of activity could include contributions to College activity across the spectrum of teaching and research and will involve high-level project support for the Head of College or their nominee, to support various initiatives. In many cases, the post-holder will be leading and delivering high-profile work, working closely with internal and external stakeholders (e.g. briefing documents, analysing data and drafting reports).

Main Duties

Project Delivery

Responsible for the delivery of College-level project work, through the provision of significant and high-level project management support. Project responsibility can vary depending on the scope and nature of the project, and the post-holder will be expected to work with senior colleagues from across the College to ensure that activities receive the right level and intensity of support and management at each stage. The post-holder will operate with a considerable degree of autonomy, leading and delivering pieces of work which will often be relevant across the organisation.

• Proactively support the College senior leadership team with high-level project support for a mixture of short-term projects and long-running project groups. At times, this will require strategic thinking and excellent relationship management skills to negotiate deadlines and priorities between the members of the senior leadership team.
• Developing project plans, identifying (as appropriate) key performance indicators and milestones
• Reviewing and auditing progress on projects to identify and act on improvements to effectiveness, efficiency and delivery.
• Reporting on progress including the development of reporting mechanisms, writing reports (e.g. on project budgetary management), and presenting to appropriate meetings such as Project Board or to other key stakeholders.
• Drafting briefing notes on particular topics or projects for College Senior Management, or drafting committee papers for areas of College Governance (e.g. College Board).
• Providing executive support to Project Boards, work streams and working groups as required; setting agendas, collating and distributing papers and minutes and ensuring follow up action is taken.
• Assessing and escalating as you deem appropriate issues and risks, including monitoring risk registers.
• Stakeholder management, ensuring effective liaison with project partners, funders, Project Boards as appropriate.
• Managing project resources efficiently and effectively, including budgets, and ensure project documentation is maintained.
• Working with College Marketing and Communications team to develop and deliver communication strategy for the project(s), including briefings for stakeholders.
• Ensuring that priorities are balanced, taking action to deliver agreed deliverables against timelines.
• Source, analyse and develop insights from the data to inform evaluation and review of projects.
• Drive the delivery of key project areas by working effectively with a wide range of staff across complex agendas.

People management

• Manage staff with care and attention, ensuring relevant targets and goals are achieved within resource constraints.
• Responsible for ensuring all annual review processes, including Performance and Development Reviews are conducted with the staff member(s).
• Identify appropriate opportunities for development and change and encourage other team members to do the same.
• Remain up-to-date with institutional management expectations and good practice.

General

• Demonstrate the University values in day-to-day delivery, communicating and collaborating with others accordingly.
• Actively manage equality, diversity and inclusion through own behaviours and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Support the University's sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Substantial demonstrable relevant experience in Higher Education or a comparable sector.
• Experience of project and/or change management in Higher Education or a comparable sector.
• A good understanding of the external environmental factors affecting the HE sector, and a research-intensive and civic University in particular.
• Experience of planning and coordinating activities across a complex organisation and working in collaboration and partnership with academic and professional services colleagues.
• A high degree of personal accountability and the ability to influence and build rapport with senior stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills, including exceptional interpersonal skills.
• Experience of analysing and presenting data to senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrable ability to proactively manage own workload, balance competing priorities and work to deadlines.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, and a self-motivating approach. The ability to bring personal ideas and creativity to projects, and complete tasks based on only broad direction and with minimum supervision.
• Proactive and flexible approach and attitude, effective time management, and a willingness to respond to changing priorities.
• High standard of presentation, accuracy, and attention to detail.
• Excellent IT skills, with working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software including MS Teams and SharePoint.
• 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.

Dimensions

The role will manage assigned projects relating to priorities identified across the breadth of the College's Senior Leadership Team. The role may manage a budget and may have line management responsibility for permanent or temporary staff.

Planning and Organising

The role supports and manages assigned projects, the work for which may vary in length and nature – support may involve a largely administrative / co-ordinating role, or leadership and delivery of a discrete project, and everything in between. In many cases the role will lead and deliver high-profile projects working directly with senior stakeholders and decision-making bodies. Planning and co-ordinating a live workload is essential, as well as planning project work with a view to providing detailed updates and reports on-demand.

Problem Solving and decision making

This role will be expected to devise and deliver operational plans and consider and recommend improvements and enhancements to such plans by reviewing progress, assessing and escalating risks. The focus of the role is on supporting and managing the assigned projects and ongoing operational business. The role will be likely to operate within constraints set by relevant senior colleagues/committees.

Internal and External relationships

The role is a key liaison and co-ordination role on specific priorities, so will have a range of internal and potentially external stakeholders.

• Team members
• Head of College and College's Senior Leadership team
• Members of relevant committees
• External stakeholders such as colleagues from comparable universities
  Other Professional Services colleagues, such as Finance, HR, etc.

Informal enquiries to Mark Jeffery, email:

View our staff values and behaviours here

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 .