Operations Officer Department : School of Security Studies School Office About us

The School of Security Studies is a world-leading centre for research and education on conflict, defence and security, and part of the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s. The School offers a substantial portfolio of Professional Education, including both online and blended courses delivered to a wide international and domestic audience, and increasingly using short courses and stackable micro-credentials. Through KIASS, and working closely with King’s Professional and Executive Development (KPED), the School aims to grow this activity further in line with King’s Education Strategy. 

The School of Security Studies is located within the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy. Together, we support an inclusive culture and diversity for our staff and students. We are committed to encouraging further growth from diverse groups, and we welcome applications from people of all abilities and currently under-represented groups, which we are able to support with our range of flexible and inclusive benefits. 

About the role

The School of Security Studies wishes to recruit an Operations Officer for Strategic Programmes, to support the development of commercial and strategic education opportunities and partnerships in the School. Reporting to the Operations Manager, the successful candidate will provide the necessary operational support to help foster innovation, develop and deliver new activity, and build internal and external networks. Duties will include supporting the Operations Manager with the organisation and running of events and activities (e.g., conferences, workshops, meetings), providing logistical support to ensure all contract deliverables with the clients are met. There is a strong financial element to the role with processing expense claims and payments to staff/non-staff members and recording these against the budget, as well as issuing invoices to the clients. You will be required to book complex travel arrangements for those attending workshops within the UK or abroad.

Key Responsibilities 

• Provide operational and logistical support including for overseas meetings, workshops and conferences, running these independently as appropriate. This includes management of international travel arrangements, venue liaison and delegation communications.
• Arrange payments and expense claims for internal and external staff, tracking expenditure across various budgets, reporting on this to the Operations Manager.
• Organise and deliver internal and external events in support of promoting Professional Education opportunities for the School.
• Monitoring the shared email address and responding to emails, including from external clients, passing these to the relevant internal stakeholders as appropriate.
• Arrange meetings with internal and external stakeholders, and provide associated support, including taking notes and providing detailed minutes.
• Support the Operations Manager as necessary on the broad range of business functions, including reporting, budget monitoring, maintaining processes and procedures, and general administration, especially regarding projects in development.
• Provide additional operational support for new and ongoing Third-Stream projects in the School when needed, working across teams to ensure smooth project delivery and client satisfaction

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post. 

The role is primarily based at King’s Strand Campus; however, the post holder may be required to travel to other locations on occasion, be prepared to attend evenings and weekends, and may be required to undertake national and international travel. As part of King’s trial of hybrid working, all team members can work remotely for part of the week should you prefer to do so. 

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an a fixed term contract until 31 December 2025.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Educated to degree level or equivalent working experience 
2. Good oral and written communication skills with an ability to engage effectively with a range of stakeholders, both internally and externally 
3. Highly proficient IT skills (databases, Excel, Word, PowerPoint) 
4. Proven ability to manage and coordinate logistically complex activities and liaise effectively with a range of national and international partners 
5. Demonstrable project management skills working across several projects concurrently 
6. Experience in complex event organisation  
7. Experience of supporting meetings and/or committees   
8. Ability to work independently, proactively, and flexibly, using own judgement, initiative, and discretion with minimum supervision 
9. Demonstrable organisational and time management skills with a high degree of attention to detail   
10. Good financial skills including expenditure tracking, managing invoices, and processing project expenses.

Desirable criteria

1. Qualification in business administration or project management
2. Familiarity with Higher Education policies and procedures including financial regulations, including procurement
3. Familiarity with Professional Education provision by Higher Education Institutions.
4. Proven ability in managing budgets and the provision of budget monitoring information 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description 

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information 

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.