King's College London

About us:

At King’s, our purpose is to put knowledge to work for the benefit of society. Strategy 2030 builds on almost 200 years of excellence, setting out our shared ambition to respond to a changing world while remaining true to our mission. As a member of our community, you will help us deliver our ambitions across our five strategic priorities: delivering student success in and beyond the University; investing in research and education excellence; fostering innovation and entrepreneurship; building sustainable finances for a secure future; and strengthening an inclusive, collaborative and inspiring University community.

You will join the Student & Academic Services Directorate, a diverse community of professional services colleagues dedicated to supporting students throughout their journey at King’s, from enrolment through to graduation and beyond. Working closely with faculties and teams across the University, we deliver high-quality services and seamless administrative processes that enable student success and help ensure every student can thrive and achieve their potential.

King's Careers & Employability supports the employability and future success of more than 45,000 students across London, fully online programmes, and global sites, alongside supporting King’s recent graduates and researchers. Our department of 45+ staff delivers over 400 events and manages thousands of queries each year. To deliver this at scale, the service relies on strong operational foundations.

About the role:

The Service Engagement & Strategic Projects (SE) team provides the core infrastructure that underpins the success of King’s Careers & Employability (KC&E) by leading operational support, strategic initiatives and communication activities that enable KC&E to reach, understand and support our 45,000+ students, researcher and alumni users.

The Service Operations Manager sits in the SE team and works across KC&E to ensure that the department operates efficiently, collaboratively, safely, and in line with university policy, financial regulations, and legal requirements. They will work closely with the Senior Leadership Team and colleagues from across the department to design and implement vital infrastructure and processes that enable the whole department to succeed.

The role is responsible for financial administration, procurement, contracts and information governance, safeguarding processes, departmental processes, and day-to-day service & site coordination. They will be responsible for setting and maintaining clear operational standards, overseeing compliance, and ensuring processes are consistent and fit for purpose across all physical and digital  KC&E locations. Through identifying risks, supporting business planning, focusing on continuous improvement, utilising data-informed recommendations and working closely with colleagues across wider Professional Services, the post protects KC&E from operational, financial, and legal risk and ensures an excellent experience for all our staff and service users.

Through this work, you will provide the crucial support that enables our specialist teams to deliver high-quality, future-focused employability support across our diverse learner and research community, contributing to King’s Strategy 2030 ambition of student success in and beyond the University.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone with experience in service improvement, business management, administration and data governance, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in building operational processes, financial administration, risk management and project delivery.

This is a full-time post, and you will be offered an indefinite contract. It is a hybrid role which involves both remote and on-campus working, with an average of two days on campus required each week.

We encourage applications from candidates both within and outside of the Higher Education sector who can demonstrate the skills needed.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Relevant work experience and/or education: A wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role.Relevant work experience might include business management or service operations within a complex organisation, developing and maintaining operational processes, monitoring service standards and coordinating activity across multiple teams.
2. Experience of coordinating procurement, contracts and supplier administration in line with organisational policies, approval processes and regulatory requirements.
3. Experience of developing, implementing and maintaining compliant operational procedures and controls, including information governance, data protection, risk management and business continuity, with the ability to identify, escalate and mitigate risks appropriately.
4. Proven ability to plan and lead operational improvement projects such as process redesign, service improvement or system implementation, with clear milestones, reporting and measurable outcomes.
5. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships and explain complex or technical information clearly to colleagues at different levels.
6. Digitally and data confident, with the ability to use appropriate systems and tools to maintain accurate records, identify and analyse key data points and make evidence-based recommendations across a range of service areas.
7. Experience in financial administration, including processing financial transactions, monitoring budgets and producing accurate financial reports.
8. Meticulous attention to detail and sound judgement, with the ability to triage risks, prioritise competing deadlines, and maintain confidentiality.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of working in higher education or similar regulated or public-sector environment.
2. Experience of supporting enquiry management or similar high-volume department-wide administrative services.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university.

The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving rapidly, and we recognise its growing role in professional work. Applicants may use AI tools to support preparation of their application, for example to research the role or structure written responses. However, applications must reflect the applicant’s own work and experience. AI tools should not be used during interviews or assessment activities unless this has been agreed in advance as a reasonable adjustment. Further guidance on the use of AI in recruitment can be found here.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.