Project & Portfolio Manager -Teachers for Educational Equity (Malaysia) - College of Social Sciences - 102794 - Grade 8

Position Details

College of Social Sciences

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £47,389 to £56,535 with potential progression once in post to £63,606

Grade: 8

Part Time (0.5 FTE)

Fixed Term contract up to 24 months

Closing date: 27th September 2026

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research. We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Professional Services put students at the heart of all they do and enable an exceptional educational experience. They provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally. They ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence. Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery of the University’s objectives, and helping everyone to understand the broader context within which we work.

Department Overview

The Educational Equity Initiative (EEI) acts as a hub for education institutions, government agencies, philanthropists, employers and the private sector community groups and employers to work together to create more equitable learning pathways across the life-course. Its purpose is to generate a step-change in understanding of, and approaches to, educational equity, leading to better outcomes for people from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds, and the communities in which they live and work. It will deliver this through a programme of research, development and engagement generating a ‘Birmingham Education Policy Manifesto’ centred around the pursuit of more equitable outcomes, and by demonstrating through the University’s own work with partners across both the city-region and internationally how the policies advocated can be delivered in practice.

The Educational Equity Initiative has secured a major philanthropic investment (£1.2 million) to deliver the Teachers for Education Equity programme in Malaysia, working with refugee schools and other teacher development organisations (Teach for Malaysia). This is a complex programme of teacher development, research and knowledge exchange that spans multiple stakeholder organisations in Malaysia and the region. It operates across jurisdictions and will need to be underpinned by strong relationships with policy makers, UNHCR, and other international, governmental, non-governmental and philanthropic funders. The postholder will work closely with the Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO) to keep the anchor funders and other donors updated. While the Teachers for Educational Equity pilot programme will run in Malaysia, core funders and EEI share the ambition of scaling the programme, up and out into additional international contexts in which education for refugee and undocumented children is extremely limited.

Role Summary

This post will manage the extension and development of this important and complex project. The post-holder will play a significant role in joining up resources and strategy across academic teams, internal specialist departments and external agencies.

The post holder will take responsibility for monitoring and managing the programme’s budget and fees model, the programme’s risk analysis, and work with multiple stakeholders to ensure regulatory compliance. They will compile reports for leadership, and work with DARO on the annual review and progress reports for our anchor funder, to trigger further fees payments as identified in the contract. They will work closely with colleagues from across the University to tell the stories of success and provide content for future funding proposals.

Working with Development and Alumni Relations (DARO) they will develop funding proposals to alumni and trusts; alongside working Research Support Services Division, to develop funding bids for research councils and international agencies. While the relationships that underpin the programme are targeted primarily for the expansion of the Teacher for Educational Equity Malaysia, they have potential to be of significant value more widely across the University.

The post holder will work collaboratively with the Academic Leads for Teachers for Educational Equity, with professional services colleagues in the School of Education and the senior philanthropy Manager (Asia) College of Social Sciences, including funding, development and alumni and communications specialists.

Main Duties

Project Delivery

Responsible for managing a large project with contributors from multiple areas. This will include some or all of the following:

• leading on the management of the project, including influencing and developing complex project plans; working with senior members of the College/Professional Service to identify and shape the strategic direction, operational plans, and key deliverables over the short, medium and long term. This will require your expert judgement to make decisions or to predict future impact of projects.
• identifying objectives and indicators of success, monitoring and recording impact for reports and updates to the donors and other stakeholders
• establish effective networking relationships with all stakeholders (which could include University Executive Board members, project boards, College Boards, senior professional services leaders, colleagues across the University and external organisations).
• managing the budget for the project as required and identifying changes to future fees funding models dependent on geolocation
• delivering project outputs agreed with senior management, on time, to budget and to the agreed quality standard. This will include day to day operational management of the project, with close stewardship of substantial and diverse funding sources.

Monitoring, evaluation and communication

• Develop and implement a comprehensive evaluation strategy for the project, including producing high quality written reports and analysis for a range of audiences including the University senior governance groups and major funders.
• Maintain a risk register as appropriate, and communicate risks in a timely manner, proactively proposing solutions.
• Engage and communicate with a variety of stakeholders to ensure progress but also to disseminate outputs of the project as appropriate. This will include developing internal and external networks with key senior stakeholders, partners and the wider community.

General

• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Relevant degree or relevant equivalent professional qualification, plus significant project management experience (in increasingly large and/or complex projects) or substantial relevant experience evidencing the experience required in this role.
• Extensive experience of working with senior academic stakeholders, with proven skills in providing authoritative advice and guidance to senior audiences, and the ability to gain buy-in.
• Authoritative knowledge of the work practices, processes and procedures relevant to the role, including broader sector/commercial awareness.
• Ability of a high standard of professional writing and an ability to produce reports for senior stakeholders, and to produce and analyse source material, information and data.
• Proven ability to meet targets, with minimal supervision to deadlines, and the ability to work independently.
• Substantial experience of engaging, and collaborating, with internal and external stakeholders, acting in the best interests of the University’s reputation, the project, and its stakeholders.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills that will help to identify and implement improvements and efficiencies across the project or project, with the intellectual confidence to make complex, evidence driven proposals.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to influence and negotiate effectively with a range of stakeholders.
• Experience of managing large financial budgets along with experience of modelling, budget planning and forecasting
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the MS Office suite. You should be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
• High level of self-motivation and personal accountability with ability to plan and deliver goals to deadlines under pressure.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.

Informal enquiries to Manjit Jutlla, email: m.k.jutlla@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.