Uni admin careers

[Chairdrobe1]

Hello, looking for any wisdom on uni admin roles. I'd like to go into it, starting at the bottom - I have some education admin experience and an UG degree. What is the pay like (I know it's low at the bottom) - what about when you progress? Career development opportunities/ability to progress quickly? Any chance of accessing training in more specialised areas e.g. HR/Finance etc.? Job stability/outlook/financial stability of institutions? (In London)

Any input at all gratefully received!

I worked in admin for one of the Russell group universities. Definitely lots of opportunities for further training in accountancy at all levels and HR qualifications. All universities have a jobs page advertising vacancies, you could probably secure a post at grade 4 or above with starting salary of around £26k although it does vary from one university to another. Good luck!

I have heard unis are losing a lot of admin staff or struggling to recruit new staff as comparable jobs in other sectors pay better. Having said that, there seem to be opportunities for progression in unis so once you have your foot in the door, you could hopefully go for internal roles. The unis I worked at offered training and secondment roles for admin staff (I am not admin myself)- no idea if this is the norm across all unis though.

Definitely a stable career with good opportunities to progress upwards or move across into different departments. Quality and amount of training depends on the institute as well as individual teams. As PP mentioned, pay isn't usually the best but pension and other benefits can be quite good.

I've worked as an admin for a couple of years at a Russell Group. I'd suggest trying to get an admin role in a central team e.g. admissions, student records rather than a department. It's really hard to get promoted within a department, more opportunities come up in the larger central departments. However, I've found them to be super flexible places to work, the pay at my uni is really good for what the job is and good maternity benefits (and other benefits of course). Depending on your previous experience and the uni, expect to start on around 22 - 25k.

If you are really interested in an 'admin' career, you are absolutely spot on to consider finance and/or HR

Why does Uni / higher education appeal to you?

Their budgets are low and are always being squeezed. You can expect to have much better access to funding for training which will let you progress much faster in the private sector or even the civil service than in higher education.

I worked in a uni for over 15 years, found career progression virtually non-existent. You are on a pay scale and when you reach the top of your grade that's it. The benefits are zero, and the pay is shit. At my one there was a definite divide between academics and professional staff. I used to get asked about all our long holidays when in reality we got 21 days plus 8 closure days, not the 3 months off in the summer everyone seemed to think.

I left last year and have found out how much my old work was holding me back (professionally and personally). I think you get 'institutionalised' after a while.

If you’re in London there is loads of opportunity to build a career and progress IF you are prepared to move institution. If you want to stay in one place then it can be “dead man’s shoes”. You will also need to apply and be successful for a role, usually in open competition even within an institution. There are often graduate entry roles that offer a “fast track” although these are sometimes limited to graduates of that university. This site has lots of info.

The sector is in a very tricky space at the moment but the same is true of most sectors.

I've been in HE Administration 7 years after escaping teaching. I took a pay cut and got an entry level role at about 22k/year. Now in mid/senior management (approx 60k per annum) in policy and projects team. I have colleagues with similar stories but some of it is definitely luck.

As mentioned by PP, you have to be prepared to move institutions (I've only had to do it once within the same city) or be lucky that roles come up in an area you wish to develop. Some of the work is very niche e.g. assessments, wellbeing, careers, programme management, research support, postgraduate research study also some institutions can be challenging, politics and ego are rife but you learn to adapt your working practices and ignore egomaniacs.

The pay is decent, holidays are decent (31+ Bank Hols + Christmas Closure) some minor benefits nothing too exciting and pay is stagnating e.g. we're only getting 5% bump this year (in addition to any increments within pay spines).

I don't intend on leaving as I'm happy enough.

Thank you all - lots of food for thought!

Depending on what department you are in, I have found it to be good in terms of flexibility if you need this. When I have worked in jobshare roles, it's usually been in this area, and in several different organisations. I remember one colleague saying that it is precisely this that is quite 'seductive' though, and persuades you to accept the low level of career progression.

In my roles, there was always a growing workload and shrinking posts covering it, with restructures very frequently (including drastic course restructures that could throw away a lot of knowledge and 'capital'). A lot is expected to be done by systems and scaled up with larger numbers of users, but there is still a lot of need to apply human thinking and relationship handling as the skill in the work, which many with academic roles (who you work for) don't willingly want or need to understand. Even HR people seemed not to value the role especially - something that came out in Away Days etc. when I worked in a field closely related to that.

Many universities do offer staff training, or can be supportive to those who are looking into that, as long the training is aligned with the work you do. Make time to take advantage of that, and do this frequently. Having seen other CVs that were applicants' or colleagues' roles, there was a lot more evidence of development within the jobs they were doing, and lines on paper giving evidence of specific skills that had improved, especially if pursued with their own time and funds.

Thanks. Did the restructures lead to redundancies?

A couple, but some roles deleted and people offered alternative posts elsewhere. Many elements that allowed for overall systems to be used sensibly by several teams that worked closely together were split and that meant quite a loss of knowledge and responsibility for the systems - only to attempt to patch things back up (not well) in that kind of direction 2-3 years later under new management.