Job Description

Position Details

External Relations


Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK


Full time starting salary is normally in the range 46,735 to 55,755 with potential progression once in post to 62,728


Grade: 8


Full Time, Permanent


Closing date: 13th July 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 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

External Relations is the division responsible for delivering our University to the world and prides itself in seizing opportunities that will enhance the profile and reputation of the University. We engage with many different audiences to build purposeful relationships internally, locally, nationally and internationally. We enable those who wish to apply to study on our courses to make informed choices. We recognise that we are strongest when we work together and take pride in upholding our core values of being ambitious, innovative, open, collaborative and responsible.


This role sits within our Digital Channel Management Team which is responsible for leading the use of digital channels including email, web, chatbots, and social media. This team is responsible for defining, monitoring and assessing the institutional strategies and influencing the roadmaps of enabling tools and technology.

Role Summary

This role will be a part of the central Digital Channel Management team and will provide leadership of operational support for the University's public-facing website, which serves around 40,000 users per day. The successful candidate will join at an exciting time during which our external website is undergoing significant transformative change - alongside the embedding our new brand we are also moving to a new platform that uses more modern technology and provides much greater flexibility in the development and publishing of content.


The role will be responsible for leading the operational delivery of the website, informing best practice, and ensuring compliance with relevant polices and legislation. The role will evaluate site performance, develop implementation plans, and oversee and support the rollout of new features and content. They will work with product teams and local web/digital teams across the university to realise and evaluate the benefits of new features and functionality.


The post holder will be expected to build and manage relationships with a wide cross-section of staff across External Relations, IT Services, and the wider University. These staff with whom you build relationships will have varying degrees of responsibility in delivering the institutional website, and so the ability to translate complex information into suitable terms for your audience is a must.


We are looking for someone who relishes the challenge of providing a consistently high standard of operational support whilst striving for continuous improvement in response to user feedback and data analytics.


The ideal candidate will combine technical and editorial know-how with an understanding of the business requirements and be able to map these to potential solutions. They will be collaborative, customer-focused, and solutions-driven, and have extensive experience of working with Content Management Systems in a competitive market environment.

Main Duties

Deliver high quality and responsive operational support for the university website. Provide leadership and direction to web teams across the university to facilitate the effective deployment of resources, encourage knowledge sharing, and support the adoption and evaluation of new features and functionality. Create deployment strategies for new website feature releases and CMS platform updates, providing the bridge between the product team, web editors and end users, and ensure that operational considerations are factored in including the impact on Search Engine Optimisation. Lead the delivery of major website updates and changes, ensuring adherence to any relevant standards and guidelines. Support the quality and assurance testing of new features and updates prior to deployment. Lead the planning and delivery of communications around website changes, feature releases and CMS upgrades. Oversee the monitoring of key website analytics including the development and maintenance of dashboards to help identify usage trends and help evaluate return on investment. Develop key operational relationships with the community of content owners, providing support, identifying gaps and working with stakeholders to ensure full content ownership across the institution. Create and deliver training, produce guidance documentation and support to colleagues to improve abilities and quality of our website, including supporting the delivery of regular Community of Practice events. Develop standards and policies to improve the quality and consistency of the external website. Identify issues, remove blockers, and flag any challenges you see that are likely to impact on the operational support of the website. Act as a primary point of escalation for any unexpected service disruptions ensuring correct parties are proactively engaged in identifying a solution and ensure root-cause analysis is performed to mitigate risk going forward. Be the main point of contact between IT Services Management and Web Operations, ensuring an efficient and effective service between divisions, including supporting procurement activity and supplier management (e.g. quarterly supplier reviews). Work with other colleagues in Digital Channel Management and end users to inform the development roadmap, using various analytics and insights to support the business case. Maintain up to date knowledge of industry developments and integrate insights to support future web strategies. Ensuring colleagues are kept informed on projects and progress - producing relevant reports to support. Promotes equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture. Supports the University's sustainability agenda through resource efficient working. Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) plusrelevant practical experience - where no equivalent qualification is held significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required. Extensive experience of taking business requirements and translating this into tangible and operationally supportable deployment plans and outputs which have a positive impact on business objectives. Experience of managing large projects including planning and delivering new experiences on the web. Good understanding of UX principles, use of navigation, and developing effective and appropriate information architecture including an understanding of how it might impact on search engine optimisation. Experience of developing relevant strategies, standards, guidelines, and tools to improve website performance and user experience. Excellent customer service skills, including the ability to demonstrate concepts and technologies to a non-technical audience. Extensive experience of developing and editing website content and using web content management systems, ideally including Contensis (Modern and Classic), to a high level of expertise and planning major changes. Experience of using analytical platforms such as Google Analytics and HotJar to derive actionable insights and inform decision-making around web development. Experience of undertaking User Experience research to inform strategic and tactical approaches to content delivery. You will have a significant knowledge and understanding of user expectations and in developing effective customer journeys for different audiences. Extensive experience of digital accessibility and developing content that is impactful and consumable by everyone. Previous experience working with product teams would be preferable, including working with project management tools, like Jira. Direct and/or indirect line management. Good understanding of working with, and contributing to, brand and tone of voice guidelines. Strong understanding and experience of identifying and implementing key performance indicators relevant to key web initiatives to measure success. Confident in challenging norms to drive excellence and have a significant impact in this area. Strong administrative, presentation, negotiation, and communication skills. The ability to prioritise, exercise good time management and organisational skills to meet deadlines. Experience of working in a busy team and on own initiative. Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly, and to produce and analyse information and data. 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.

Planning and organising

plan the running and development of service(s), overseeing resources and inputting into resource planning as appropriate; develop, agree and implement standards for delivery for own area; manage a team of staff and review, develop and motivate them; plan relevant training and development; provide professional advice, guidance and support to others within and outside their immediate work area; oversee resources and make recommendations about future resource requirements.

Problem solving and decision making

review, develop and propose solutions for problems with (for example) staff, budgets, services and/or systems; deal effectively with unexpected issues, such as changing priorities; deal with sensitive people matters/issues; provide specialist advice and recommendations to support decision-making of others.

Organisational understanding

understand their own and closely-related working areas and how they contribute to the success of the University; has an understanding of how the University operates; actively seeks to share this knowledge with others; developing empathy with the academic endeavour.

Relationships and communication

influence decision makers and win support for proposals; develop excellent working relationships within and outside of own area and potentially with external stakeholders; co-ordinate activities across a number of areas.

Informal enquiries to Rob Fowles, email: r.j.fowles@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

.