Position Details
IT Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £32,296 to £34,866 with potential progression once in post to £39,105
Grade: 6
Full Time, Permanent
Closing date: 12th March 2025
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 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. 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 a pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum, and botanical gardens.
Background
Over the next decade, our aspiration is to establish Birmingham in the top 50 of the world's leading universities. High-quality digital services and infrastructure are crucial to achieving this. In recognition of that, our Digital Strategy combined with significant investments in technology means this is an exciting time to join IT Services, ‘making IT happen’ at the University of Birmingham.
We want to attract outstanding, inspirational, and talented people, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success. It is our role to ensure that our community has access to accessible, responsive, resilient, and secure systems and support. What we do enables our students, staff, researchers, visitors, and partners to confidently and creatively use digital services, technology, and data for the benefit of their learning, teaching, research, or work.
Role Summary
The University of Birmingham is seeking to appoint a talented Project Officer to join the University’s Portfolio Delivery Assurance Team. Based in IT Services, the Portfolio Delivery Assurance Team delivers strategic and complex IT and non-IT projects across the University. The team acts as a central resource providing professional project management, process mapping expertise, and supporting project managers across the University in the delivery of their projects. As part of the team, you will be integral with responsibilities including supporting projects, committee/meeting servicing, liaising with stakeholders, and supporting the University’s Project Community. The responsibilities of the role will include:
* Providing advice and cascading expertise on project management governance to staff across IT Services and the University, to enable the successful delivery of individual projects.
* Providing project managers with the necessary support to enable successful projects to be delivered on time, on budget and to the agreed quality standards.
* Assisting the development and delivery of project management methods across all projects.
* Assisting projects to deliver new services to meet the objectives in the University Strategic Framework and local strategic plans.
The successful candidate should have experience managing and supporting projects and working with key stakeholders to successfully deliver projects on time and to budget.
Main Duties
Project Officers will manage smaller 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, build strong relationships, using analytical, initiative and planning skills to set your own priorities to ensure progress is maintained as expected, identify any issues and propose solutions.
* To arrange, support and manage 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:
o Carrying out project planning activities.
o Assist definition of project scope, goals, deliverables that support business goals, including timescales and budgets.
o Assist in establishing success criteria.
o Complete project administration within ITS project management toolset.
o Identifying deliverables and milestones which will need to be adhered to.
o Identify and assist in managing interdependencies.
o Data collection and analysis, preparing progress and performance data and reports for project boards or other meetings.
o Milestone tracking/key performance indicator tracking.
o Developing and proposing solutions for any issues.
o Recommending improvements to project management processes and ways of working.
o Budgetary monitoring and management, including reporting.
o Implementing stakeholder management, developing and maintaining regular contact with internal and external stakeholders to understand requirements.
o Assessing, resolving and escalating issues and risks as appropriate.
o Proactively managing project changes and contingency plans.
o Assist in assurance that solutions are technically feasible, relevant and fit for purpose to achieve project goals.
o Meeting and workshop facilitation, drawing on key resources and knowledge where required.
o Assist, advise or coach staff in software, tools and specifically project methodology and provide support, guidance and expertise to staff in their project management duties.
o Compiling and maintaining project documentation (e.g. project initiation documents) to support project delivery and quality assurance to ensure a consistent level of project management and documentation across all projects.
o Assisting in forward planning to ensure all areas are involved early enough to plan for resource requirements.
o Providing administrative support to the Delivery Assurance team.
o 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.
* 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.
* Proficient organisational skills to manage project resources, delivery timescales, scope and budgets.
* Experience of managing budgets and P&L’s.
* Experience of Service Delivery and transitioning systems into production ready state.
* Excellent analytical skills used to produce reports, identify issues and resolve them decisively.
* Excellent interpersonal skills. The post holder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
* Action oriented, capable of contributing to solving complex problems, drawing on expertise and knowledge within the wider IT Services organisation.
* 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.
* 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.
* Qualification in Project Management e.g. Prince 2, APMPFQ.
* Knowledge of ITIL Service Management.
Role context
Roles at this level will require expertise and a detailed understanding of methods, systems and procedures in an administrative or professional area. You will either use specialist knowledge or have more of a planning/co-ordination/project role or a role which is supervisory in nature where you may manage a team doing similar kinds of work. You will have the opportunity to exercise a high degree of personal responsibility and initiative which you will use to resolve queries; you will use your judgement to deal with unforeseen problems and circumstances, all with limited guidance/supervision.
Core competencies/transferable skills
Working at this level you will be able to develop and successfully use the core competencies/transferable skills outlined in each of the areas shown below. As appropriate for the level, our Birmingham Professionals will take ownership for getting things done. You will be expected to be flexible as required in supporting your department and wider University.
Planning and organising
* Prioritise and schedule work and resources to ensure on time and (where applicable) on budget delivery;
* Set priorities and quality standards for a wide range of tasks and duties;
* Manage a team of staff who are carrying out similar kinds of work;
* Contribute to written documents, for example guidelines internal to the area, taking account of audience;
* Operate with limited supervision as they will have considerable scope for initiative, within established work procedures.
Problem solving and decision making
* Anticipate and identify issues in own area based on experience;
* Make appropriate suggestions for improvements and implement these when agreed in own area;
* Facilitate change, and articulate the implications and benefits of change to others;
* Focus on determining short-term priorities of work area, and how to maximise quality, efficiency and continuity.
Organisational understanding
* Quickly develop an understanding of their working area and how it contributes to the success of the University;
* Display an interest in how the University operates beyond own working area; develop and share this knowledge with others.
Relationships and communication
* Develop and maintain excellent working relationships in own area, and more widely as required for collaborative working opportunities;
* Communicate clearly and openly with others both within and external to the University, and use a range of communication skills and strategies to gain commitment to a course of action;
* Demonstrate collaborative working at all times, including with others outside the immediate work area.
Informal enquiries to Dominyk Maggs, email: d.maggs@bham.ac.uk
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.
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