Senior Student Support Manager

About the role

We are seeking an experienced & proactive individual to lead and shape student support across the faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences. As Senior Student Support Manager, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring services are inclusive, effective, and responsive to the needs of our diverse student community.

Working closely with colleagues, you will oversee the delivery of high-quality support aligned with university policies & faculty goals. Your responsibilities will include managing escalated cases, coordinating the Support for Study process, and driving initiatives around wellbeing and academic progression.

You will use data and feedback to evaluate and enhance support provision, promoting consistency and continuous improvement across programmes. As line manager to the Student Support Manager, you will provide clear leadership, especially in handling sensitive and complex student matters.

You will also act as the Faculty’s Designated Safeguarding Officer, ensuring compliance and contributing to a supportive, risk-aware environment. Collaboration with university-wide support services is key to this role.

The faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences operates a hybrid working policy and you will be expected to spend a minimum of 2 working days per week on campus.

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

• Experience with supporting students (or other individuals) across a wide range of situations including when in crisis, from different backgrounds and demonstrating empathy, sensitivity, and discretion.
• Comprehensive experience and understanding of the issues impacting the higher education sector in relation to student welfare, support and safeguarding.
• Ability to analyse and understand complex information, policies, and procedures in order to take appropriate action or recommend improvements to the service.
• Experience of leading and managing teams, with a pro-active and development focused approach.
• Demonstrable negotiating / influencing skills and an ability to work with all levels of stakeholders.
• Ability to balance competing demands and manage expectations, both for your own workload and that of a team, bearing in mind the needs of our stakeholders
• Ability to engage in collaborative working across King’s professional services, other faculties, academic and student communities, with a meaningful and visible commitment to Diversity & Inclusion policies and practices.
• Ability to drive both structural and cultural change in a student experience or support context.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working in an HE provider
• Adept at maintaining progress on multiple agendas and projects simultaneously while maintaining rigorous attention to detail.
• Awareness of when to signpost students to appropriate support services, including those relating to wellbeing or academic studies

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.

*  Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

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