"Senior Business Operations Manager"

About us

King’s Centre for International Education and Languages (CIEL) a new, cross-cutting Centre designed to widen the educational reach of King’s. It brings together three existing areas: King’s Foundations, Summer Programmes, and King’s Language Centre. Each of these areas is well established, respected and recognised beyond the King’s community. The Centre is focused on enabling collaboration between the three departments to further advance our work in promoting educational excellence and supporting and enhancing the student experience. The Centre has significant expertise in International Education and makes an important contribution to the rich and diverse make-up of the King’s student body.

About the role

The Senior Business Operations Manager will be responsible for the smooth running and consistent approach in business operations across CIEL and its departments. The postholder will coordinate the CIEL Central and individual departments business function, including finance, procurement, staff recruitment and lifecycle, space, health and safety, business continuity, information and data management, ensuring activities are consistent with operational policies and procedures. The postholder will work closely with Business Support teams embedded in CIEL’s departments, ensuring a cohesive and consistent operational approach across the Centre.

Working with the CIEL Senior Leadership Team (SLT), the postholder will support the Heads of Operations to balance the academic, business and financial objectives to achieve the departmental strategic and operational aims.

The successful candidate will have strong interpersonal and communication skills with proven experience in coordinating business operations and change initiatives. They will have strong numerical and analytical skills and a proactive and problem-solving mindset and ability to convert objectives into actionable plans.

As the centre’s Health and Safety Coordinator, the postholder must be willing to work towards IOSH Managing Safely qualification.

The role is primarily based at King’s Strand Campus though you may be required to travel to other campuses on occasion. As part of King’s hybrid working policy, all Professional Services team members can work remotely for up to 40-60% each week. Flexibility is required in terms of days on campus to align with key colleagues in CIEL. There may be times when more time on campus is required, which would be arranged with the line manager.

This is a full time, and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

About you

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

Essential criteria

1. Proven experience in coordinating business operations and people-related processes (including recruitment and staff lifecycle activities) in a complex organisation, ideally within higher education
2. Highly numerate and literate with strong attention to detail and adept at understanding, analysing and presenting complex data to a wide-ranging audience
3. Experience of managing large complex multi-activity budgets and financial reporting systems, and monitoring and acting on financial performance
4. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to influence and coordinate with colleagues in roles not directly line-managed, a wide variety of stakeholders; draft policy and process, present confidently in a variety of formats
5. Proactive approach to service improvement, with experience identifying and implementing changes to enhance efficiency, consistency, and user experience
6. Strong organisational and planning skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, work to deadlines, and maintain attention to detail in a busy environment
7. Understanding of governance and compliance processes including procurement, contracts, risk assessments, Health and Safety
8. Commitment to fostering a positive, inclusive, and collaborative culture, aligned with King’s values of respect, openness, and excellence

Desirable criteria

1. Finance qualification or similar accreditation
2. Experience in managing business change initiatives
3. Project Management or similar equivalent qualification or training
4. IOSH Managing Safely qualification

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 page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

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.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

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 person specification section of the job description. 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.

Interviews are due to be held during w/c 26th January 2026

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service clearances.

Grade and Salary: £53,947 - £63,350 per annum including London Weighting Allowance
Job ID: 131985
Close Date: 04-Jan-2026
Contact Person: Lucy Spasova-Joneja
Contact Details: lucy.spasova-joneja@kcl.ac.uk