Senior Business Operations Officer

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About Us

King's College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. The university is dedicated to driving positive and sustainable change in society and realising our vision of making the world a better place.

At King's Collage London, the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine (FoLSM) is one of the largest and most successful centres for research and education in the UK. The Faculty was created as a result of the merger of elements of the School of Biomedical Sciences with the School of Medicine. The merger brings together basic, translational and clinical scientists to provide new cross-School research collaborations while optimising the deployment of teaching expertise across the Faculty.

Within FoLSM, the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences aim to improve patient response through fundamental science discovery. Our academic excellence is widely recognised and through our local, national and international partners our scientists join up with world-class clinical services for the benefit of cancer patients in southeast London and beyond. Working across our acute and community sectors, we are also maximising beneficial outcomes for our patients from medicines, through medicines optimisation. Our key collaborators include the NHS, local and national governments, the third sector, industry, patients and the public.

About The Role

This is an exciting opportunity within the School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences. We are seeking to appoint an experienced and highly motivated Senior Business Operations Officer to provide high quality administration and operational support to the Academics, researchers and PhD students based in Bermondsey Wing, Guy's Hospital on our Guy's Campus. The Senior Business Operations Officer will be a member of the School Professional Services Team working collaboratively to ensure that work is delivered consistently across the School.

The position is varied and involves supporting a range of functions such as HR, Finance and Research Grant Administration, as well as organising and planning local resources and initiatives such as seminars, meetings and events. The role can be fast paced with short deadlines, and the successful candidate will need to be able to handle multiple tasks, plan their own time well, and have excellent communication skills.

The post holder will work closely with the Research Operations Manager and the Core Team to support pre-award processes such as grant applications, award acceptance and award set up across the various departments in the School. They will also support post-award processes such as providing guidance to our academics on eligible and ineligible costs on a grant, monitoring budgets, flagging up risks with the Research Operations Manager and finding solutions to funding issues.

The post holder will forge good working relationships with the Research Management and Innovation Directorate (RMID) and champion the use of KCL systems (in particular our research grants management system, Worktribe, and our finance system, Business World/Agresso).

The School has adopted a hybrid way of working for its professional services staff, with each working in the office for at least 60% FTE. The post is based in a busy department. The postholder will need to be adaptable and have a positive attitude to a dynamic workplace.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

About You

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

Essential criteria

1. Educated to Degree level or considerable knowledge and skills gained through work experience in a relevant post, demonstrating development through progressively more demanding work.
2. Have extensive administrative/operations experience with an in-depth knowledge of a range of practices, methods and procedures and have a good eye for detail.
3. Highly numerate with proven financial management and analytical skills to underpin strategic financial strategic decisions and procedure.
4. Have experience of complying with complex regulations/procedures, e.g. GDPR
5. Solutions-focused self-starter, with excellent planning and organisational skills, an ability to manage competing priorities and who can work with minimal supervision.
6. Good communication, orally and in writing, along with strong interpersonal and influencing/behavioral skills.
7. Good computer skills including Microsoft Office packages.
8. Proactive and responsive to internal contacts in immediate area and across King's and contacts outside the University (e.g. Suppliers, colleagues in other HE institutions) in order to build relationships.

Desirable criteria

1. A commitment to an excellent student experience and concern for staff and student wellbeing, along with a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.
2. Excellent people skills, able to build rapport with colleagues.
3. Ability to supervise/advise junior team members and give feedback on performance levels, providing training/coaching where necessary.
4. Able and willing to provide support beyond core hours, as required.
5. Experience of financial planning and implementation, including preparing budget, financial profiling, preparing business cases and plans, and monitoring key performance indicators, budgets and risks, with experience of using research grants management systems (such as Worktribe) and finance systems (such as Business World/Agresso.

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

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

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 advert. 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.

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