Hybrid Administrator presso Cardiff University

Administrator
School of Psychology

An exciting new and varied research administration role has arisen to join the new Women’s Health Research Centre in the School of Psychology. The Grade 4 Administrator has responsibility for providing a high level, proactive administrative support service for the Centre which aims to be a global hub for women’s health research and innovation with a mission to eliminate inequalities in women’s health. 

The successful candidate will be a strong team player with exceptional customer service skills and a can-do, flexible attitude, and will provide a comprehensive and professional Research Centre Administration support role within the professional services team.

In this role you will provide administrative support for:

• research financial and project administration
• general administrative processes and procedures (e.g., diary management)
• coordination of internal and external meetings and events
• assist Centre professional team with effective running of the Centre office

We’d like to hear from you if you have:

1. substantial experience of working in an administrative support role.
2. proficient to a high standard in using common office IT packages (e.g. MS Office)
3. proven experience in setting up standard office systems and procedures, monitoring and making improvements as appropriate.

We can offer you the chance to work in a vibrant organisation, with great benefits and opportunities for progression. We are a proud Living Wage supporter.

Please contact the Centre Director, Professor Jacky Boivin ([email protected]) for an informal, confidential discussion about the role.

The Centre funding is up to 5 years, subject to a satisfactory Centre performance report after the third year. 

This position is part-time (17.5 hours per week), available from 1st October 2025 and fixed term until 31st March 2028, with potential for further two years following satisfactory Centre performance report.

Salary: £27,644 - £30,805 per annum, pro-rata (Grade 4). Appointments to roles at Cardiff University are usually made at bottom of scale unless in exceptional circumstances.

As the biggest university in Wales – and a major employer, with more than 7,000 staff – we are an ambitious and innovative university located in a beautiful and thriving capital city. We can offer you the chance to work in a vibrant organisation, with great benefits and opportunities for progression.

Date advert posted: Wednesday, 6 August 2025

Closing Date: Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds.  We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangement.

Applications may be submitted in Welsh, and an application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application submitted in English.

Job Purpose
Providing comprehensive and professional support to the Women’s Health Research Wales Centre, providing support and guidance on a variety of administrative responsibilities to support the Centre and its portfolio of research projects.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Perform a variety of administrative duties to support the Centre and its portfolio of research projects achieve its objectives.
• Provide executive support to the Centre Executive Team which will include diary management for the Centre Director and supporting the co-ordination of internal and external meetings.  The drafting of agendas, co-ordination of paperwork and taking minutes will be required.
• Work with other members of the Centre’s professional services team (Centre Manager, Communication Officer) to assist with the effective running of the research centre office, providing cover during absences and ensuring an excellent level of customer service.
• Manage the induction process for new staff, to arrange appropriate access and tech support
• Manage the Centre email inbox and calendar, responding to administrative tasks, internal and external queries, and escalating queries where necessary.
• Maintain and monitor the purchase-order-to-payment process within the Centre, keeping detailed and accurate records of purchases, expenses and invoices, and arranging the formal registration of suppliers in line with University processes.
• Liaise with appropriate internal and external colleagues to support financial budgeting of research proposals working with the appropriate internal teams e.g., School Research office & pre-awards team to obtain required information.
• Liaise with casual staff, placement interns and PhD students working within the centre to ensure accurate records of all payments.
• Work with the Centre Manager to monitor and forecast the Centre non-staff budget and project budgets and report on expenditure to the Executive Management Team.
• Complete and monitor the progress of HR paperwork for Centre staff, liaising with the Centre Manager and HR teams where necessary and completing HR-related paperwork of staff contractual changes related to the centre’s research projects
• Support Principal Investigators and researchers with a wide range of research project administrative tasks.
• Provide detailed advice and guidance on Centre processes and procedures to internal and external customers (staff, students or members of the public), using judgement and creativity to suggest the most appropriate course of action, and contributing to the solving of more complex issues.
• Collaborate with others to make recommendations to improve our ways of working and to established processes and procedures.
• Contribute to the production of documents and presentations including proofreading and formatting, adhering to deadlines if applicable.
• Work with others to ensure the Centre’s mechanisms for the regular reporting and monitoring of research activity is achieved in a timely manner; gathering and analysing data (e.g. on relevant outputs and milestones.) so that informed decisions can be made, establishing basic trends and patterns in the data and providing reports and recommendations for management.
• Ensure administrative responsibilities and work schedules are managed with minimum supervision.
• Assist the Communications Officer and the Public Involvement Leads with public engagement activities, for instance supporting administration aspects of research-related events.
• Establish productive relationships with key individuals (University colleagues and external contacts) to help improve the level of service the team provides to its customers
• Instruct and guide other employees across the university in relation to the Centre, as required.

General Duties

• Ensure that an understanding of the importance of confidentiality is applied when undertaking all duties.

Continued in Additional Information....

30,805

Grade 4

27,644

Admin / Clerical

Continued from Job Description

• Abide by all University policies and undergo appropriate personal and professional development.
• Perform other duties which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.
• Uphold the Professional Services Values & Behaviours or local equivalent.

Please note: A Disclosure and Barring (DBS) check will be carried out for the successful candidate.
 
Additional Information
The Women’s Health Research Wales Centre is funded by Health and Care Research Wales with a Head Office in Cardiff University, and core partners at Bangor University, Swansea University and University of South Wales. The Centre aims to be a global hub for women’s health research and innovation with a mission to eliminate inequalities in women’s health. We established that transformative change for women’s health will require action in four thematic areas: prevention and health(y) transitions (Theme 1), early onset and life-long conditions (Theme 2), rare and stigmatised conditions (Theme 3), and underserved communities (Theme 3). The Centre will have deep and sustained engagement with communities, business and governments, and a research culture that reflects our aims and promotes action. We will bring together multi-disciplinary expertise from across Wales and foster collaboration with experts in the community, the third sector, government, NHS and industry, and partners elsewhere in the UK and internationally to develop cutting-edge research capable of addressing inequalities in women’s health. Our work will be underpinned by substantial UK and international research funding and projected rapid growth in research staff. The first Centre Director, Professor Jacky Boivin, will take up this post April 1st, 2025. The Centre offices will be in the School of Psychology, Cardiff University.

HOW WE WILL SUPPORT YOU IN PERFORMING THIS ROLE

We want to support and develop you in the role, using a combination of the following to help you reach your full potential.

1. Regular one-to-one meetings with your team leader.
2. An experienced and supportive team around you.
3. Support to undertake job-relevant training and development, as identified by your Line Manager. This could be informal or could be an apprenticeship leading to a formal qualification, such as Business administration NVQ.
4. A staff mentoring scheme.
5. Support to learn Welsh or to update language skills.

Technical

IMPORTANT NOTE: When submitting your supporting statement, you must provide evidence as to how you meet each of the essential (and desirable if applicable) criteria below. We suggest that you do so by using each of the criteria as sub-headings, providing written evidence of your relevant skills underneath. Before uploading this attachment, please ensure that you include ****BR within the filename.

We want to employ people with a wide variety of experiences. We welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. We are particularly seeking applications from candidates who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the University, including people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.

The successful candidate will be a strong team player who will work with colleagues to provide a great service to the Centre staff and its partners (internal, external). You don’t need to have worked for a University before; this is an opportunity to show your potential and start or continue your career at Cardiff University.

This role may be an opportunity for you to build on your experience from working in a previous administrative role or environment with particular interest in Centre and research administration, showing your transferable skills and aptitude to be successful in the role. You should be enthusiastic about developing your knowledge and skills to become a valued member of the team.

Your application will be assessed against the following essential and desirable criteria for the role. Please copy and paste this section into a new document and give clear examples of how you can evidence meeting each criteria by writing under each one. You can draw on elements from any aspect of your life (e.g. work, home, education/qualifications or community life) as long as you focus on their relevance to the role.

Essential Criteria

1. Ability to communicate in writing clearly, concisely, and effectively to provide detailed advice and guidance on the Centre and research administration.
2. Proficient to a high standard of numeracy and IT literacy (e.g., using using common office IT packages such as MS Office.
3. Substantial experience of working in an administrative role or environment and proven ability to set up standard office systems and procedures, making improvements to these as appropriate.
4. Specialist knowledge of Centre and research administration.
5. Ability to advise and influence key stakeholders, and to communicate specialist and complex information effectively and professionally to a range of customers with varying levels of understanding.
6. Proven ability to work as an effective team member, providing advice and guidance to other team members where necessary.
7. Ability to explore customers’ needs and adapt the service you provide accordingly to ensure a quality service is delivered.
8. Ability to use your initiative and creativity to solve problems, respond to queries and make recommendations, identifying and proposing practical solutions where there are a range of potential options available.
9. Ability to work unsupervised to deadlines, planning, setting and monitoring your priorities and those of the team.
10. Evidence of ability to analyse processes and procedures, and advise on improvements.

Desirable Criteria

1. Experience of working in a similar role or environment, e.g. research environment, Higher Education.
2. Ability to speak/understand Welsh or a willingness to learn.
3. A willingness to undertake further training and development.