Job Description

Position Details

Conferences and Events

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,062 to £31,900, with potential progression once in post to £35,883

Grade: 5

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 21st May 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

Campus Services 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 Event Co-ordinator post is part of the Event Management team that sits within Conferences & events (C&e). 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 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.

The Event Co-ordinator is responsible for managing and coordinating a wide range of events. Responsibilities may include booking locations, liaising with service providers, host client meetings, lining up sponsors and securing food and drinks. The role will cover a wide variety of tasks essential to delivering events and cover a range of residential conferences, through social functions to day events and exhibitions.

Together with a representative from the Account Management team the postholder will be responsible for showing our facilities to prospective organisers and be expected to identify opportunities to upsell services.

The Event Co-ordinator will liaise with clients across the University and externally, as well as service providers to manage and ensure all the customers’ requirements are delivered to the highest possible standard. Documenting all client details accurately on the booking system is essential, as it is imperative to build and maintain up to date client records.

The post holder will need to be financially aware as maximising income generated through the allocation of facilities and services is crucial. Customer service skills are a necessity as we take great pride in our high level of delivering customer excellence.

The postholder will need to work flexibly when events are held in the evening or at weekends and although most events will be based on campus, the postholder may also be asked to support events at the Exchange, Edgbaston Park hotel or any other appropriate location. To flexibly use resource, the postholder may be asked to work elsewhere in the department or across the University.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for all aspects of event administration and co-ordinating a variety of events at any one time which will include;
  • acting as first point of contact for a high volume and diverse range of enquiries, working with clients to understand the objectives for the event, making recommendations for their event, identifying the most appropriate services and venues, maximising opportunities to upsell as appropriate.
  • being present on the day of the event, managing logistics, dealing with any issues which may arise and ensure the smooth running of the event.
  • ensuring bookings are accurately recorded on booking system and circulated as appropriate prior to events.
  • chair customer planning meetings and host familiarisation visits of University venues.
  • processing financial requirements for each booking, requesting purchase orders to be created to confirm services are booked, requesting deposits when applicable, ensuring quotes are accurate, reconciling all items and figures before forwarding to Financial Administrator for final billing.
  • following up post event with the customer to gather feedback, identifying if repeat bookings can be secured and using feedback to make improvements in the service.
• Proficient use of event management systems to accurately input and maintain event data, ensuring meticulous attention to detail for seamless event delivery and adherence to handover processes with finance teams.
• Arrange audio visual, exhibition, staging and decoration requirements for internal and external clients.
• Provide advice to internal and external clients regarding national and international events, to market and to pro-actively encourage clients to use the event management service.
• Support the Event Manager with the organisation of larger scale conferences and events internally and externally, commercial and non-commercial.
• Achieve monthly and annual financial targets set by the business areas i.e. accommodation, catering, room hire.
• Analyse customer/delegate data to produce operational reports to ensure adequate and service provision is in place.
• To test the customer journey to ensure our promotional materials match customer needs.
• Ensure that the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) centre always runs smoothly and efficiently. This will be achieved by maintaining a confident and proactive presence in the centre during client events and ensuring that ‘behind the scenes’ operational procedures are always followed.

Other

• Provide support for manager(s) in promoting sustainability across the University, supporting the ISO20121 event management standard.
• Ensure that all activities and services comply with health and safety regulations, including the timely and accurate issue of risk assessments.
• Liaise with colleagues at all levels to ensure effective management of activities related to delivering conferences and events.
• Support equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Any other duties as may reasonably be expected by the relevant manager.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• Minimum of grade C in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent level 2 qualifications.
• Professional experience in an Events and/or Marketing role.
• Ability to analyse numerical and financial data.
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the MS Office and website editing software. You should be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required as in-house systems are used for procurement.
• Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own (and sometimes others’ workloads) to manage time effectively, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. You 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.
• Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

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 everyoneon our website