Operations Manager (6 Months)

6 Month Fixed Term Contract

About us

The Vice-President External Engagement (VPEE) team delivers communications and marketing activity for UCL, working to ensure UCL’s public prominence, reputation and influence reflects the university’s excellence in knowledge creation, education, and innovation

About the role

This is a great opportunity to step into a varied and influential Operations Manager role for our VP External Engagement department. Working closely with the Director of Operations, you will play a key role in keeping the department running smoothly, coordinating activity across finance, people processes and day-to-day operations.

If you enjoy bringing order to complexity, working with numbers as much as people, and making systems and processes work better for everyone, this role will suit you well.

What you’ll be doing:

Finance and budgeting
A significant part of your role will be financial coordination and oversight. You’ll work with budget holders and the Finance Business Partner to support annual budgeting and reforecasting, track expenditure, and ensure teams understand and follow UCL’s financial policies.

HR, people and culture
Alongside finance, you’ll support effective and inclusive HR operations. This includes coordinating recruitment processes, acting as a first point of contact for operational HR queries, and escalating to central HR teams where needed.

Operations and office management
You’ll take care of the practical details that help people do their jobs well – ordering IT and mobile equipment, liaising with IT and Estates, managing contracts, and ensuring new starters receive local safety inductions. Your calm, organised approach will help everything run seamlessly behind the scenes.

About you

You’ll bring strong financial and operational experience, with confidence working across budgets, systems and processes. You’re also a clear and approachable communicator, able to explain financial and HR processes to colleagues with different backgrounds and levels of experience.

You’ll be organised, discreet and dependable, with excellent attention to detail and the ability to juggle multiple priorities. Most importantly, you’ll enjoy being a trusted operational partner – someone who brings structure, reassurance and expertise to a busy and collaborative environment.

Please review the job description, paying particular attention to the Essential and Desirable criteria, and ensure these are covered in your application.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
• Immigration loan
• Relocation scheme for certain posts
• On-Site nursery
• On-site gym
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
• Discounted medical insurance

Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce.

These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.

Customer advert reference: B23-00173

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