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About the Role
The Open University is recruiting for an Administrator to work in The Open University’s Reading for Pleasure (RfP) Research and Practice Coalition which is the flagship of the Literacy and Social Justice Centre. The Coalition focuses on promoting volitional reading within and beyond schools to improve children and young people’s literacy outcomes, wider attainment and well-being. It frames reading as a ‘right’, emphasising the "will" over the "skills" of reading and works to foster a lifelong love of reading in the young. The team’s diverse professional development, programmes, consultancy, evaluations and knowledge exchange work involves schools, teachers, librarians, charities, literacy organisations, authors, publishers and many others. We are seeking an administrator to support this work and its accompanying website.
Key Responsibilities
- Creating and maintaining a detailed budget spreadsheet, including tracking income and expenditure, raising invoices, purchase orders, external consultancy requests, managing regular payments to external organisations as well as internal expenses, booking travel and accommodation.
- Managing individual payments to external companies including charitable donations.
- Administration of elements of the Reading and Writing Schools Programmes, Teacher Reading Groups, Higher Education Institution Partners, Student Teacher Ambassador Scheme, Awards (Harper Collins, OU and UKLA Award, and Student Award) including the coordination of ordering and delivery of associated resources, and managing the members-only area of the website.
- Editing and uploading material to our website, liaising with the website designer to resolve more complex technical issues and creating and/or publishing posts.
- Supporting conference organisation including liaison with the team, the Events Office, Catering, Security and technical assistance.
- Creating Eventbrite pages, with hidden discounts, registration forms, developing and publishing event promotions.
- Drafting and distributing comprehensive conference pre-event emails, event signage, materials and badging.
- Supporting the delivery of online seminars, including the creation of Eventbrite registrations, setting up and managing the administration of large Zoom/Microsoft Teams meetings.
- Editing and maintaining intranet pages for the Literacy and Social Justice Centre.
About You
Essential:
- Able to demonstrate a good standard of written and spoken English, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively.
- Track record of providing efficient administrative and financial support to a team, including taking follow-up action and drafting responses for senior staff.
- Organisational ability, accuracy, attention to detail and competence in financial and administrative work.
- Experience of working in a busy office environment, with the ability to manage competing deadlines, prioritise effectively, be adaptable and handle an unpredictable workload.
- Professionalism, confidence, and diplomacy in communicating effectively, with discretion and tact when dealing with a wide range of people within and beyond the University.
- Ability to work collaboratively as an effective team member, alongside experience of independent working, proactively manging workload and active problem solving.
- Excellent IT proficiency especially with Microsoft Office packages, Teams, or equivalent software.
- Ability to carry out the role and support students in a way that is consistent with equality legislation and University policies.
Desirable:
- Experience of OU systems and processes, such as SAP Ariba, Devcorn, Click Travel and Mailerlite
- Experience of Wordpress, Elementor, Canva.
Support with your application
If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.
What's in it for you?
At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
Working Location: It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes Office, it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be twice per month, but this could be more often if business needs dictate. Working 100% based from our Milton Keynes site is also supported if this is preferred by the candidate. Expenses associated with travel to our Milton Keynes site are not reimbursable.
Working Pattern: This role is 11 hours per week and the expectation will be for the successful candidate to work 1.5 days over the week and the days worked can be negotiated.
Next steps in the Recruitment process
Interviews likely to take place week commencing 8th June 2026
Early closing date notification
While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications has been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented.
If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.
How to apply
To apply for this role, please submit the following documents:
- CV
- Supporting statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the essential criteria for this role as detailed above.
You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.
