Volunteering Programme Support Assistant
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
All projects are student-led, which means students volunteer to organise the activities, recruit their own team of volunteers to deliver them, and, when relevant, manage the relationship with local partner organisations. To ensure these projects have a positive impact volunteers and participants involved, their volunteer student leaders need outstanding support from the Students’ Union.
The Volunteering Programme Support Assistant will play a key role in enabling a variety of volunteering projects to thrive through maintaining group processes and supporting project leaders in their volunteer management.
The role sits within the Union’s Student Development team who are committed to offering a high level of support, administration, training, and development to student leaders and volunteering groups. With a growing number of projects and activity each year, we are keen to ensure leaders have access to excellent support and guidance.
The Volunteering Programme Support Assistant will play a key role in enabling a variety of volunteering projects to thrive through maintaining group processes and supporting project leaders in their volunteer management. They will deliver support to volunteering student leaders such as information provision, practical support including delivering training and workshops, and promotion and communication. There will also be opportunities for the candidate to contribute to evaluation and decision-making around priorities in the work area.
This role is student-facing, requiring excellent customer service and communication skills, both digitally and in-person, to support students through resources and guidance on the SU’s volunteering processes. In addition, the candidate will regularly use of a range of software packages including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. The candidate will deal with numerous email and face-to-face enquiries predominantly from students looking to volunteer or from student leaders. The candidate must be able to balance priorities and take an organised approach to ensuring tasks are completed across the working week.
Throughout the year there will also be opportunities to support at events such as Student Volunteering Week, Awards nights and Get into Volunteering fairs. Moreover, the role is designed to offer professional development opportunities through training and networking opportunities with other university colleagues. In particular, the Students’ Union volunteering team work closely with the University’s volunteering team, meeting regularly, supporting and promoting each other's opportunities as well as participating in knowledge sharing practices.
Please read the full role profile before applying, as well as our guide to recruitment.
Details
Wage: £13.45 per hour + holiday pay (the rate of pay has been updated since the role profile was created, this is the latest pay rate)
Contract: Zero Hours, Fixed-Term until 31st July 2026
Hours: approximately 10-15 per week during term time
Eligibility: open to applicants with relevant skills and experience who are eligible to work in the UK and a current student at UoM graduating in July 2026 or later.
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: 5th January 2026
Applications close: 18th January 2026 23:59
Interviews: Early Feb 2026
Role Commencing: End of Feb 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.
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