Admissions Advisor

**Job details**

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**Responsible to**

Admissions Officer

**Location**

Kedleston Road, Derby Campus

**Closing date**

Sunday 29 March 2026

**Salary**

£28,636 to £30,394 per annum (for exceptional performers, there is scope for further progression up to £34,953 per annum)

**Job grade**

ATOS 5

**Reference**

0042-26

**Contract type**

Permanent

**Post type**

Full-time

**Adaptive working type**

Hybrid

This role will be based on site, primarily in the named location. Currently, this role offers the opportunity to work remotely, normally 2 day/s a week in line with our Adaptive Working Framework.

**About the University**

We have one simple promise – to make a positive impact. Through our ground-breaking research, teaching excellence and commitment to sustainable living, we are changing lives for the better.

The University of Derby is a modern university with a modern outlook. Everything we do is driven by delivering excellence and opportunities for our students, our staff and our region.

We have some of the best university facilities in the UK and achieve outstanding results for our teaching and research and have been awarded Gold in the prestigious Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 – making it one of the top universities in the country recognised for its outstanding student experience and student outcomes.

Financially strong and seriously ambitious we offer our employees an inclusive culture that centres itself around staff wellbeing, where you can be confident you will receive all the help and encouragement you need to build a rewarding career with lots of opportunities to enhance your skills.

**About the College/Department**

The Registry support all aspects of the student journey, right from initial enquiry and application, all the way through to final award and student completion. We strive to provide an outstanding service to all our users and to be thought leaders in our fields of expertise, developing research informed practice. Registry teams work collaboratively with stakeholders to deliver a high performance culture and promotes wellbeing, diversity and opportunity for all, supporting excellent student experience.

**About the Admissions Team**

The Admissions team provides a vital service to enable the University to meet its student recruitment targets by delivering an excellent customer experience. The Admissions team remit covers UK and international students across the University’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

**About the role**

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a motivated and dedicated individual to join a brilliant department that plays a pivotal role in the success of the University and applicant engagement.

This role manages a portfolio of courses, ensuring that applications are processed accurately and expediently in line with the University’s admissions strategy and policies. You will need to plan and prioritise tasks, balance conflicting deadlines, manage high and unpredictable volumes during peak periods, to meet KPIs such as turnaround times, and ensure compliance requirements are met. You will need to be confident working across various digital systems/technologies to process applications and enquiries.

You will work as part of a team and work closely with key stakeholders to ensure a process of fair and compliant admissions to the University. You will be expected to work independently and take ownership of your portfolio of work. Whilst a defined set of courses will be allocated each year, usually on a rotational basis, you will be expected to work collaboratively across all portfolios as required.

You will be the Data Steward for all data within your portfolio of work, ensuring the processing and management of the data is in line with data security policies and established procedures. You will ensure that data is captured in a way it can be used to feed management reporting.

You will support the wider work of the The Registry department, providing an excellent applicant experience. You will assist key University operational activities such as Clearing and confirmation, open days, outreach events, and enrolment.

You will be expected to undertake occasional evening and weekend work at specific times of the year, particularly in August and September.

**About You**

We are looking for a customer-focused individual with excellent organisational and interpersonal skills who can use complex systems and has the ability to prioritise workloads. You will be working alongside a team of professional, proactive, and motivated people to ensure we deliver an excellent service to our applicants and stakeholders.

You will play a key role in supporting operational processes, managing workloads effectively through data, and delivering excellent customer service to both internal and external stakeholders.

This role requires someone who is detail-oriented, adaptable, and comfortable working in a fast-paced environment where priorities may change. You will collaborate across teams, contribute to problem-solving initiatives, and help ensure processes run efficiently while maintaining high standards of accuracy and professionalism.

To be successful in this role; you will have strong communication skills, excellent digital literacy, and the ability to explain complex information clearly and diplomatically. You will demonstrate good judgement, strong organisational abilities, and a commitment to building effective working relationships across the organisation.

**Principal accountabilities**

Assess, monitor and manage applications and related enquiries effectively, acting as the key contact for applicants and academics.

Assess applications for suitability and make a decision to offer or reject in line with entry criteria, the offer strategy, governance requirements and service level agreements.

Take responsible for issuing offers to applicants and understand an offer constitutes a contract between the University and the applicant. Continually adopt and adjust approach and methodology to manage conflicting priorities when supporting applicant needs and recruitment targets.

Have a good understanding of UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) compliance requirements in relation to international admissions and ensure effective and timely management of international applications which includes assessing the application through to Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) issuance.

Manage and maintain accurate applicant records and data to enable concise reporting for institutional decision making, strategy development, internal audits and external returns, for example Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and university league tables.

Maintain and help to evolve the applicant conversion culture to support institutional goals for candidate quality and recruitment targets.

Uphold, understand and guard the Admissions Policy for the institution. Hold the same regard for other internal/external policies and procedures.

Work with the Admissions Officer to implement practice that widens participation to higher education and upholds the values of equality and social inclusion in admissions.

Deliver an excellent customer service to applicants and internal stakeholders.

Attend and provide Admissions support for key recruitment and conversion events, for example, Clearing, Open days, Enrolment and outreach events. Help develop content/information and deliver presentations/talks as required for the purpose of training others within the admissions team or in admissions-related rolesas part of our governance role at the University and to assist with outreach activity for schools and college liaison.

Actively engage and participate in the buddy system in place to enable continuation of service during the absence of colleagues. This will entail working outside of the parameters of your own portfolio of work and focusing on priorities across your own and buddy’s portfolio. This requires keeping the portfolio up to date and completing a comprehensive handover before any planned absence.

Ensure clear, effective and timely communication as appropriate to internal and external stakeholders. Maintain accurate records to enable evidence-based challenge and support.

Using available audits and monitoring processes ensure quality assurance of own work and effective prioritisation to avoid creating bottlenecks and delays. Use initiative to resolve problems and queries relevant to responsibilities.

Act in a responsible, professional manner and comply with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and data security legislation/policy. In doing so, ensure data is extracted, shared, handled, and stored appropriately and removed responsibly in accordance with the University’s retention policy.

Attend all training and development opportunities as required to ensure relevancy of practice and compliance.

Provide a good level of technical expertise, support and ideas to benefit effectiveness of operational activity, recruitment, conversion and compliance. Engage and participate in service projects and provide professional opinion and information as

Provide information, advice and guidance on entry qualifications, available entry routes and the process of admission to university.

Provide information, advice and guidance to academic staff on the agreed admissions procedures and policies helping ensure compliance and understanding.

Deliver timely management information that may be required eg accurate data for HESA returns.

Assist with delivering a programme of induction and training for new staff to help ensure a deep understanding of relevant procedures, delivery schedule, systems, data/reporting, compliance requirements and technicalities. This includes mentoring and supporting new team members.

Assist with collating information for responses to Freedom of Information (FOI), Subject Access Requests and informal/formal admissions complaints as expected.

On occasion, undertake supervisory responsibilities as required.

Support the wider work of The Registry department, providing an excellent applicant experience.

Adopt the University’s Core Values and Underpinning Behaviours.

**Person specification**

### **Essential Criteria**

#### **Qualifications**

• HND or equivalent qualification, or comparable knowledge and transferable skills gained through professional experience

#### **Experience**

• Experience of working in a team within a busy administrative environment
• Experience of using data to manage workload
• Demonstrable experience of adapting to and managing change in the workplace at a personal level
• Experience of working in a customer service environment

#### **Skills, knowledge & abilities**

• Excellent attention to detail
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills including the ability to explain complex queries with tact and diplomacy when dealing with a wide range of contacts both internal and external
• Strong customer services skills
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Understanding complex requirements, planning work and managing priorities
• Contributing to the creation of innovative solutions to problems, addressing the root cause and thus making a positive impact
• Working collaboratively across boundaries to achieve common goals
• Building and maintaining strong working relationships across an organisation
• Good judgement of situations and people and the ability to respond appropriately and professionally
• Ability to adapt and be flexible
• Ability to understand and apply regulations such as GDPR
• Excellent digital literacy and ability to confidently use a range of tools such as Microsoft Office Suite, CRM systems and database products to support and drive accuracy, enabling efficiencies in day to day work
• Good analytical skills

**Business requirements**

• Ability to work outside of normal working hours (including some evenings and weekends), to support the business during key University events, such as Graduation, Clearing and Open Days and at key student admissions points

### **Desirable Criteria**

#### **Qualifications**

• Customer service qualification

#### **Experience**

• Experience of working in an admissions/recruitment team
• Experience of working in the Higher Education sector

#### **Skills, knowledge & abilities**

• Understanding of a post-16 vocational institution

**Benefits**

• Generous annual leave entitlement of 38 days inclusive of bank holidays and concessionary days (pro rata)
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Suite of holistic wellbeing benefits and support including family-friendly policies, generous sick pay provision and comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
• Access to a variety of staff discounts at high street retailers
• Discounted onsite gym
• Cycle to Work scheme
• A flexible working environment
• A commitment to personal and professional development

**Key contact**

For further information and informal enquiries regarding the role, please contact Lynne Ball, Admissions Manager via L.ball@derby.ac.uk or Jennifer West, Admissions Officer via J.West2@derby.ac.uk

For enquiries regarding your application and for sponsorship eligibility, please contact the recruitment team via recruitment@derby.ac.uk.

**Important information**

#### **Visa Sponsorship Eligibility**

The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers under the Skilled Worker route for this role; however, applications are welcome from candidates who are able to demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.

#### **Equity, diversity and inclusion**

The University of Derby is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, regardless of age, disability, trans status, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief (or none), sex and sexual orientation.

We are Disability Confident Employers, demonstrating our commitment to disability inclusion, and invite applicants to highlight adjustments they may require to ensure equitable participation in our recruitment processes.

Further, we are committed to ensuring an environment which is trans and non-binary-inclusive for all our staff, students, partners, and visitors, and continuously review our policies, guidance and training.

When applying to join the University, you can choose your preferred title, including the gender-neutral title 'Mx'. We also ask our candidates if they would like to share their preferred pronouns. This is voluntary but demonstrates our commitment to inclusivity for trans and non-binary candidates. Once employed, you can add pronouns and preferred names onto our system.

The University of Derby undertakes anonymised shortlisting during the staff recruitment process. This means that, when shortlisting, panel members will not be able to see an applicant’s name and will see an applicant number instead. This demonstrates the practical steps we are taking to remove barriers to recruitment by minimising the possible impact of our unconscious bias.

However you identify, we actively celebrate the knowledge, experience and talents each person brings. Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds; therefore we are particularly interested to hear from applicants who will help our leaders and teams be more reflective of our student population.

Read more about equity, diversity and inclusion at the University of Derby.

#### **Environmental Sustainability**

At the University of Derby, we are passionate about embedding sustainability into everything that we do. We aim to bring environmental sustainability into all aspects of the University, including teaching, research and operational activities. In line with the University's strategic framework, we expect all our staff to embed sustainability into their working practices and support the University's objective to reach net zero carbon by 2050.

**Unlock your potential and apply today.**

**How to apply**

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You can apply by submitting an online application. Once you have signed in or registered with us you will be able to begin your application. If you are creating an account for the first time, please ensure you provide an email address that you access regularly as this will be our main means of contacting you regarding your application.

**The University reserves the right to close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.**

If you require any assistance, including the provision of any documentation in an alternative format, please contact the Recruitment team at recruitment@derby.ac.uk.

Please note all applications must be submitted online by Midnight GMT on the closing date of the vacancy.