Senior Executive Assistant

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

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. The Strategic Vision 2029 looks forward to King's College London's 200th anniversary in 2029 and sets out ambitious plans in five key areas:

• Educating the next generation of change-makers

• Challenging ideas and driving change through research

• Giving back to society through meaningful service

• Working with our local communities in London

• Fostering global citizens with an international perspective

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a Faculty of King's College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease.

The School of Neuroscience is UK's 2nd largest Neuroscience school with over 500 researcher and 200 PhD students. It is one of three schools at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. We are ranked 4th in the world for the total number of publications in neuroscience, 4th for the number of publication outputs in top 5% citations in neuroscience, and 4th for top 5% citations in neurology.

The Centre for Developmental Neurobiology aims to understand the mechanisms that control brain development and how deviations from the normal plan may lead to disease. The Centre has a team of over 190 researchers and support staff and is part of the School of Neuroscience in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.

We strongly encourage our staff to dedicate time to their professional development through training courses and participation in working groups and networks. We also encourage our staff to seek mentoring outside their direct line management. Mentoring, both via formal and informal arrangements, allows individuals to fully explore their career situation and development. Our weekly school circular regularly captures and promotes opportunities open to all staff.

About the role

The Centre for Developmental Neurobiology is looking for a highly motivated and experienced Senior Executive Assistant to provide broad support to the Director, the Managing Director, and central operations for the Centre.

The main purpose of the role is to provide comprehensive, confidential, and high-quality executive support to the Director, including smooth and efficient day-to-day management, handling correspondence and associated communications, and often being a first point of contact both internally and externally. However, the role extends beyond personal assistance and administrative support into supporting strategic projects, as requested by the Director, in cooperation with the Research Strategy Manager. They will liaise with a range of people at all levels across the Centre, School, and wider King's community, including professional services cluster teams in the School of Neuroscience depending on the nature of the task. It is expected that the post holder will also line-manage and supervise a Business Operations Officer who will be supporting the department 50% of the week.

We are looking for someone who has substantial experience as an executive assistant at a senior level providing operational support in a busy office with competing demands. We are looking for someone who has proven skills in managing numerous tasks and flexible in hours worked to ensure that critical tasks are completed within deadlines. You will be a self-starter with a can-do attitude. You will be highly organised and flexible in your approach, can work independently, is proactive in delivering tasks, and responds well to different styles of leadership. You will advocate for process improvement and innovation and be committed to the principles of culture, equality, diversity, and inclusion and supporting cultural change. Excellent communication skills are essential as is an attention to detail.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract from 25th May 2026 to 7th March 2027 or until the return of the substantive post holder (maternity cover).

The post holder is expected to be on campus at least 4 days a week. Travel within the UK will be required to support meetings, events, and engagements.

About you

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

Essential criteria

1. Proven experience in providing high level administrative and/or personal support to a senior executive, ideally within a research or academic environment, including electronic diary, email, and meeting management.
2. Strong organisational skills and the ability to multitask, manage competing priorities and meet multiple deadlines.
3. Excellent communication skills including excellent spoken and written English, particularly in formal documents, letters, emails and other communications.
4. Motivated, resourceful, self-starter who can work independently, with strong attention to detail, with minimal direction, tact and diplomacy. Able to deal with sensitive information with the utmost discretion and confidentiality.
5. Excellent IT skills including proficiency in Microsoft Office 365 (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneDrive) and experience of other office management software or tools.
6. Experience of high-level event coordination and handling logistics for professional meetings, external visits, and workshops.
7. Experience of financial tracking and a good understanding of expense and reimbursement monitoring and reporting.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of working in the higher education sector and familiarity with higher education administration.
2. Working knowledge and experience of King's systems such as Business World and HR Digital Services.
3. Proven commitment to ongoing skills development.
4. Experience using MacOS computers and other devices.

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.

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.