Position Details
Department of Applied Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,062 to £31,900, with potential progression once in post to £35,883 (pro-rata salary for this position is £15,031 to £15,950 with potential progression to £17,941)
Grade: 5
Part Time 0.5 FTE (17.5 hours per week)
Fixed Term contract up to January 2028
Closing date: 25 th August 2026
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.
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.
Department Overview
As part of the £40 million LifeArc investment to transform rare disease research, a number of high-value projects and programmes have been awarded. Birmingham is taking a national leadership role in driving transformative health research and clinical innovation, including in the LifeArc Centre for Acceleration of Rare Disease Trials (ARDT) - https://rarediseasetrials.org.uk/. The project directors are Professor Timothy Barrett, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health and Director of the Centre for Rare Disease Studies, and Professor Amos Burke, Director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit. This centre aims to boost the capacity and efficiency of rare disease trials across the UK – including facilitating equitable recruitment, streamlining administrative hurdles and offering a ‘one-stop shop’ for trial design and support.
Role Summary
As a data manager within the LifeArc ARDT Centre, you will provide support for a broad range of data related and administrative duties, some of which may be complex. You will work specifically within Work Package 5 (Implementing Innovation in the NHS) of the LifeArc ARDT Centre to provide support for the effective delivery of a devolved 4 nations approach to research. The aims of this work package are to incorporate health economic data into trial designs, and to scope barriers to UK-wide medicines implementation and address ethical issues around access to medicines (working with the other work packages). The data manager post will support the convening of future workshops for regulatory institutions, Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and other key stakeholders, to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of innovation in rare diseases in the NHS, and to deliver consensus recommendations. The post holder will be involved in all aspects of data collection, management and verification, and accurate input and reporting, including undertaking regular checks to validate and verify information. You will have the opportunity to contribute to the development and improvement of procedures and protocols.
Main Duties
- Acting as a key communications point for research teams and other associated members, you will receive and resolve queries through to resolution. While there are still clear general processes and procedures, problems arise which call for choice based.
- Proactively managing communications with, for example, the project team across the consortium, for data collection, ensuring everyone is kept up to date as appropriate.
- Ensuring confidentiality on all work at all times.
- You will be able to deal with complex systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries
- Assisting with general data management and record keeping.
- Responsibility for accurately entering data into a variety of research and administrative databases, including non-routine or ad-hoc data (i.e. that requires more interpretation or development of new codes) under guidance.
- Performing regular, systematic checks to validate and verify information on the data base(s) in order to produce a clean, accurate and complete data set for analysis. Identifying and resolving any missing, incomplete or contradictory data. Producing reports and lists on both a regular and ad-hoc basis.
- Working with senior staff you will test data entry, validation and report generation applications, reporting errors and suggesting modifications. You may create and test simple ad-hoc data bases, forms, surveys and report generation on your own initiative.
- Providing administrative support as required. This may include maintaining stocks of supplies, assisting in organising meetings and travel, handling petty cash, and day to day distribution of materials to external centres.
- Developing and documenting standard operating procedures for the work of the post, for review by managers. Assisting with the supervision and training of less senior team members, checking the work done by others as appropriate.
- Developing skills and experience by taking part in training to develop advanced computing and broader trial/data management skills.
- Covering for managers within own area of expertise. Decides on short term priorities and timetabling for own and sometimes others’ work.
- Any other duties as may be required commensurate with the post.
- Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others. Treats everyone with dignity and respect in line with current equality legislation.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
- Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
- GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C/4 minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
- Prior knowledge of rare disease landscapes (desirable).
- Experience of medical data coding, data entry and data validation techniques. Able to query and maintain computer databases.
- Must demonstrate a critical and intelligent attention to detail including high standards of accuracy.
- Ability to demonstrate excellent organisational skills including the ability to work independently and prioritise own workload with minimum supervision to ensure tasks meet agreed deadlines.
- Ability to identify and break down potential problems using past experience and knowledge of good research practices, whilst having regard to their impact outside own area
- Ability to proactively suggest improvements to working procedures under supervision.
- Highly proficient IT skills, and the ability to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required. and software.
- Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
- Aptitude for learning and applying new skills, and once trained have the ability to work independently with minimum supervision, to gather information or simply finding missing or inaccurate data
- An interest in developing an understanding of the general underlying concepts of clinical trials and clinical trial registries.
- Ability to follow complex data management and administration procedures including the operation and maintenance of complex computer database and information systems.
- Flexible and willing attitude to being part of a multidisciplinary established teams.
- Decides on short term priorities and timetabling for own and sometimes others’ work.
- Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace
- Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures
Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace. Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant university policies and procedures relating to equality and diversity.
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Further particulars can be found here
Informal enquiries to Devin Peipert, email: [email protected]
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 .
