Sales and Events Support - Conferences and Events - 108129Z26 - Grade 4

Licensed sponsor United Kingdom Posted 1 day ago

Position Details

Conferences and Events
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,546 to £29,171, with potential progression once in post to £32,595
Grade: 4
Part Time, 0.71 FTE (25 hours per week)
Fixed Term contract up to January 2028
Closing date: 22nd October 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 & 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.

Campus Service is responsible for a very large range of services within the University including student accommodation, catering, Sport and Fitness, cleaning and waste management, conferences and events, delivering the University’s post, day nurseries, security and emergency response, Winterbourne House & Garden.

The support post sits within the Conferences & events (C&E) team that resides with Venues and Events, Campus Services. C&E sells and delivers a vast number of conferences and events to underpin academic work, support the student experience and drive additional income. As with any commercial revenue generating and department within a university, C&E seeks to strike a balance between enhancing the student and staff experience and ensuring a financial return to the University.

Role Summary

The role is to support Conferences and events, working as part of a team or on own initiative. You will have the ability to manage your work without needing to refer to others for most of your time alongside administering processes in a timely and accurate manner.

Your role will involve providing administrative support to all teams within C&E including Sales, Event Delivery, Event Management and Finance & Systems whilst also supporting the management team as and when required. There will be opportunities to take the lead on specific tasks.

You will be responsible for responding to emails and telephone enquiries whilst managing the website Chatbot, consistently displaying outstanding customer service. Your role will include managing various supportive processes to assist the life cycle of a booking whilst maintaining accuracy and timely loading of all updated information within bookings.

You will also support with the booking of meeting rooms and catering orders as well as oversee outdoor ground hire events whilst ensuring relevant information is communicated to service providers.

Main Duties

You will act as a point of contact to provide accurate and timely information and advice to internal and external customers and stakeholders on university processes and procedures, answering queries promptly, providing guidance and resolving queries from initial contact to resolution. This will include recognising when queries need to be referred elsewhere.

Monitoring the C&E office switchboard
Coordinating both Sales and Event Delivery email inboxes
Managing of the C&E website chatbot for any general enquiries
Serving as the primary contact for non-chargeable bookings, outdoor ground hire bookings and catering only orders
Serving as the secondary contact for small internal meetings and specific room bookings

Provide proactive administrative support to ensure the smooth operation of the C&E team, including but not limited to:

Coordinate and track external client payments (deposits and full payments), ensuring records are accurate and up to date.
Manage the internal purchase order process for post-event billing.
Ensure client and company details from new enquiries are checked and accurately entered into the system where appropriate.
Oversee the tracking of enquiry and contract follow-ups, ensuring system records reflect the most up-to-date booking availability.
Liaise with the UoB Timetabling Team to ensure all C&E requests are submitted, managed, and updated appropriately.
Maintain accurate client marketing preferences, ensuring each profile has a clearly recorded opt-in/opt-out status with supporting information.
Book internal service providers as required.
Administer venue-specific processes,
Coordinate all summer and winter graduation celebration events, as well as summer BBQ bookings.
Manage the Sales-to-Events handover process, ensuring all information is accurate, tasks are assigned appropriately, and communications are formatted correctly.

Use a variety of software systems and processes to research, manipulate, analyse and interpret sets of 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.
As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Some professional experience in a similar role, ideally booking of rooms and entering orders onto systems.
GCSEs to a minimum of grade C 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 needing to refer to others, with scope for some choice and using your own judgment.
Ability to work on your own initiative.
Ability to proactively contribute to improving processes and for proposing 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.
The 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.
The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures and how to respond to issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
Have an understanding of Natasha’s Law.

Informal enquiries to Ryan Adams-McGlasson, email: r.j.adams@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.