Personal Assistant and Senior Administrator

Salary - £33,284 - £35,322 Depending on experience
Hybrid working (50/50)

Location: Wallingford, Lancaster, Bangor, Edinburgh
Closing date: Monday 2 November 2026

We reserve the right to close this advert early if we find the right candidate, so we encourage you to apply early.

We're looking for an organised, proactive, and highly professional individual to join our team in a varied and rewarding support role.

You'll provide dedicated support to Glenn Watts, Science Director for Water and Climate Science (50% FTE), alongside supporting other senior leader(s) across the organisation (30% FTE). Working at the heart of the leadership team, you'll play a key role in ensuring priorities are managed effectively and day-to-day activities run smoothly.

This is a diverse position that combines Personal Assistant responsibilities with broader coordination and administrative support. You'll work closely with senior leaders, colleagues from across UKCEH, and external stakeholders, helping to coordinate meetings, manage communications, and organise logistics to ensure everything runs efficiently and professionally.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage diary, inbox requests and respond to routine enquiries for a Science Director and a small number of other senior leaders. Escalating matters where appropriate.

Coordinate UK and international travel, accommodation and conference arrangements for specific senior leaders.

• Provide logistics for meetings, workshops, visits and stakeholder engagements, including preparing agendas, circulating papers, note taking in meetings.
• Handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion and professionalism.
• Identify opportunities to improve administrative processes and ways of working.

We're Looking for Someone Who:

Essential

• Has experience as a Personal or Executive Assistant or similar senior administration support role, managing diaries and email on behalf of others.
• Has experience maintaining records, coordinating information and supporting operational activities.
• Is highly organised and able to manage multiple competing priorities and work to deadlines.
• Has effective communication and interpersonal skills, building effective working relationships with colleagues at all levels.
• Has excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently while recognising when issues require escalation.
• Is confident using Microsoft 365 applications, including Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Can manage confidential information appropriately and exercise sound judgement.

Desirable

• Experience supporting senior leaders or Directors.
• Experience working within research, scientific or technical environments.
• Experience organising large or complex meetings, workshops or events.
• Experience taking minutes and managing action logs.
• Experience coordinating activities across multiple teams or functions.