Who are we?

We are Manchester Students’ Union, the biggest SU in the country, supporting over 48,000 students throughout their time at university. We help to make student life the best it can be by supporting students to campaign for change, creating opportunities to meet new people, providing employment opportunities, providing advice and support and being a safe place on campus.

We are a values-centred organisation that employs around 90 permanent, full-time members of staff. We recruit a wide range of roles throughout the year within all our departments from our Commercial team operating Manchester Academy Venues, 13 Media, Bar 532 & Kitchen and Corridor Coffee to our Student Activities, Student Engagement, Marketing and Communications, Finance, HR and Facilities teams. Our team of around 400 part-time, studying staff are instrumental in providing to support to all departments as well as leading major projects like Student Angels. When you join UMSU, you’ll be immersed in an environment that empowers staff to make great things happen and we're always on the lookout for innovative, passionate, and proactive people to join us.

Our values are really important to us and shape the work that we do every day. As part of our recruitment process, we want you to demonstrate how your experiences, behaviours and skills align with our values. You can find more detailed explanations of our values on our website.

About the role

Are you passionate about serving students the best drinks in Manchester? Do you love live music events and being active in the student social calendar?

As a Senior Bar Supervisor, your day-to-day focus will be working on 532 Bar and Kitchen and across our four Manchester Academy venue bars. You’ll play a key role in the operation development of all our bars individually, while also gaining experience in the wider management and operation of a hospitality venue. This role is designed to build your skills and qualifications to help you progress into a management-level position within the hospitality industry.

532 Bar and Kitchen has been a staple of the student campus experience and our Manchester Academy venue bars come with over 30 years of history in Manchester’s music scene, hosting the likes of Led Zepplin and David Bowie in the past, to the present day with artists like Muse and Billie Eilish. Within the role, you’ll learn to manage the bars of both sites, with support of the bar management team, and you will be leading a team of around sixteen student Team Leaders and over one hundred Student Bar Assistants, encouraging their development and enabling them to hit high standards of customer service and product delivery.

Throughout this role, you’ll discover the inner workings of a bar, including rota and staff management, event organisation, stock control and more alongside our bar management team of 4 full-time staff who all have their own specialty areas. We’ll support your professional development through internal training as well as supporting you to achieve accredited qualifications such as your Personal License, ACT (Action Counters Terrorism) and First Aid (EFAW) certification. As a Senior Bar Supervisor, you’ll support our commercial income generation which will go on to fund impactful student services operated by other teams at the Students’ Union.

Please read the full role profile before applying, as well as our guide to recruitment.

Details

Salary: £24,863 - 27,013 per year

Contract: Full Time / Fixed-Term until August 2027

Hours: 35 Hours per week annualised (Includes evenings and weekends. The Students’ Union Bars Team operates to seasonal hours, weekly hours will likely run higher during Sept-Dec and Feb-May, with reduced hours outside of those months dependant on the needs of the business.)

Eligibility:  Open to applicants with relevant skills and experience who are eligible to work in the UK at the point of employment and one of the following

• a UoM, MMU or UoS 2025 or 2026 graduate
• a current UoM, MMU or UoS student on a year out
• a previous UoM, MMU or UoS student who has dropped out of their course during 2025 or 2026

Our Reward Package

You'll get access to our reward package which you can see here.

Recruitment Guide

We have a guide that explains our full recruitment process. We recommend reading through this before beginning an application.

If you are invited to interview with us, we will share our interview questions in advance so you can prepare your responses. We’re more interested in hearing about your experiences and ideas than in testing your memory, and so we want you to feel as prepared as possible.

AI Use

GenAI tools, like ChatGPT, are revolutionising how we approach a whole host of tasks at work. As a future-focused employer, we believe in embracing, not banning, these tools. However, as with all tech, some ways of using it are better than others. You can use GenAI to refine and articulate your ideas. It’s a tool to help structure your thoughts and improve clarity, not to replace your unique voice and experiences. Please don’t just copy and paste what AI tells you to write.

We recommend you read our guide on how to approach the use of AI within our recruitment process:

Inclusivity and Accessibility

We are committed to equality of opportunity, and we work hard to ensure we appoint based on skill and values.

We particularly encourage applications from Disabled or Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African candidates as these groups are currently underrepresented in our staff team.

If you have any accessibility requirements or require adjustments to support you to apply to work with us, please get in touch. We can offer reasonable adjustments at all stages of our recruitment process.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer. Under this scheme, we aim to offer an interview to candidates who declare a disability and meet the minimum essential criteria for the role. Minimum criteria are marked with an asterisk on the person specification. However, during periods of exceptionally high application volumes or peak recruitment times (i.e. July, August and September), it may not always be possible to guarantee an interview for every eligible candidate. In such cases, we will take steps to ensure that the process remains fair, consistent, and inclusive.

Recruitment Timeline

Applications opened: 12/05/2026

Applications close: 11/06/2026 23:59 pm

Interviews: 02/07/2025 & 03/07/2025

Role Commencing: 03/08/2026

We may close applications early if we receive a high volume of applications. We recommend that you apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Once the vacancy has closed, we’re unable to accept late applications to ensure a fair process for all candidates.

Once you have submitted your application, you will not be able to make any further changes. Please ensure you are happy with your responses before submitting.

Contact

People Team:

You can contact the People Team with any questions regarding this vacancy or our recruitment process.

Email: jobs.su@manchester.ac.uk

Phone: 0161 306 3279

Hiring Manager: harriet.wray@manchester.ac.uk & craig.whittle@manchester.ac.uk

You can contact the hiring manager with any questions regarding this vacancy or our recruitment process.