Job Description

Position Details

Food, Beverage and Retail

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

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 28th 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 Business and Operations department (BOPS) offers a variety of food and beverage outlets to staff, students and visitors across campus and student accommodation including but not limited to coffee shops, take-aways, bars, restaurants, food stalls, and kiosks. We also provide hospitality services for meetings, conferences and events held on campus. You will be responsible for preparing, producing and presenting food within these operations.

Role Summary

To work alongside and deputise for the Senior Head Chef, contributing to the development of the culinary service, ensuring that food is prepared, produced and served to the required standards, and all supporting financial and administrative work is completed to the specified standard and in line with all relevant policies. In order to flexibly utilise resource you may be required to work elsewhere in the department or wider University.

Main Duties

Leadership

1. Lead the delivery and production for food/hospitality services, ensuring the delivery of quality food services for students and customers.
2. To monitor and maintain consistent food standards and quality across all areas and during all stages the food preparation process and supply.
3. Develop the food offering and the engineering of menus and innovation.
4. Planning delivery, delegating as appropriate to ensure smooth flow of culinary operations and allow consistent delivery of excellent quality food.

Finance

1. To achieve the budgeted food cost of sales whilst maintaining the consistency of food products to meet operational demand.
2. Drives budgets in conjunction with the Senior Head Chef, develops action plans and directly motivates and instructs the team to implement to achieve them.
3. Responsible for stock takes undertake and produced monthly in conjunction with Senior Head Chef.
4. Proactively reviewing the culinary service and key business indicators to identify opportunities for improvement.

People

1. Responsible for delivering an excellent culinary service and for training, coaching and supporting staff to do the same; Encouraging participation from staff in developing goals and plans.
2. Carry out regular job chats and PDR’s with the team, ensuring compliance with the Universities policies and procedures.
3. Actively manages and motivates staff by regularly providing feedback and setting objectives to improve staff performance.
4. Manages ongoing staff performance using performance management tools to support organisational objectives.
5. Supporting and participation in the UoB recruitment and selection process.
6. Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.

Collaborative working

1. Working with the Senior Chef and other senior managers to develop new dishes and menus.
2. Liaise with the operations team where necessary in the planning and delivery of events.
3. To be involved in the setting of service and quality standards and to monitor and strive for the achievement of those. Take prompt action to resolve any complaints or problems, in accordance with UoB policy/processes.
4. Work closely and build solid relationships with suppliers to make sure that all products received re of the highest quality and as requested.

Planning and Execution

1. Proactively monitors the menus on offer, ensuring the food offer is kept relevent, and meets customer needs (taking into account customer feedback).
2. Design menus that enhance customers’ culinary experience ensure effective communications across the culinary team, cascading messages as appropriate.
3. Working closely with the Senior Head Chef you will make sure that resources are used effectively and efficiently, seeking opportunities to increase sales, maintain margins and control costs.
4. Design and produce weekly or monthly staff rotas if required.
5. Utilises and demonstrates effective management principles and practices to create and maintain a successful team resulting in an environment where all staff are valued and respected.
6. Ensure the departmental standard operating procedures, policies and systems are kept up to date at all times.

Policies, procedure and Health and Safety

1. Responsibility for ensuring stock is monitored and rotated, food is used before best before dates and that wastage is minimised.
2. Responsible for ensuring the team complies with all relevant Health and Safety legislation and any local departmental policies, taking corrective action on any breaches. These will include Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations, the hygiene recording system, and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) hygiene and allergen recording system
3. Promptly reporting equipment failure and taking action to ensure repairs are undertaken to minimise “downtime”.
4. Contributing to team briefings and departmental meetings.
5. To undertake any other reasonable duties/requests as requested from a manager.

Operational Requirements

1. Contracts are task-based as such hours be will required to suit the needs of the business, which will include evenings and weekends, bank holidays and closed days, based on a notional 37.5 hour week (or pro rata).
2. BOPS is an all year round service, you will be required to participate in the Duty Manager rota, providing management cover 7 days per week / 365 days of the year, and provide emergency response as necessary across all operations.
3. To undertake works activities across all UoB campuses as requested that are commensurate with the grade and role activities to support the Division and wider UoB activities.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Excellent leadership skills and significant experience of managing multiple kitchens, outlets and staff
• NVQ in Food Preparation level 3 (or the equivalent City and Guilds qualification)
• Food Safety Certificate level 4 essential. Advanced (level 4) Food Safety Certificate an advantage
• A good level of literacy and numeracy. This can be evidenced by achieving Mathematics and English GCSE at grade C (or equivalent level 2 qualification) or able to demonstrate relevant experience such that the tasks can be carried out at the required standard
• Significant experience of costing menus, recipes and food ordering
• Proven experience of delivering a quality service and of implementing improvements
• PC literate and familiar with the Microsoft Office Suite
• Knowledge of the following is essential: Health and Safety at Work Act, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) hygiene and allergen recording systems, COSHH and a relevant Manual Handling course
• 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 Stewart Turner, email: s.a.turner@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.