Customer Service Adviser; Student Support

Welsh Language: Not Applicable

Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to You Tube by clicking this link).

We are looking for talented new members to join our Student Recruitment & Support Adviser team. This role will be to provide student-centred information by phone, email, and webchat, so that we can continue to provide an exceptional and responsive service to our students and enquirers. We are hugely passionate about what we do and are looking for likeminded individuals, who genuinely care about our students and their journey with us, and who can work in a fast‑paced environment which is focussed on continuous improvement.

This role has a fixed start date of Monday 11 May 2026 where successful candidate will start a fully supported 6 week training and induction programme.

The internal job title for this role is Student Recruitment and Support Adviser.

• Be the first point of contact for students and enquirers, to provide information regarding registration, funding and study support at The Open University. To deal with both proactive and reactive contact through different channels, primarily inbound and outbound phone calls, and emails/webform, and webchat within agreed service levels. Where necessary, refer on to other staff with specialist expertise, as part of our Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) model, making interactions with The Open University as straightforward as possible.
• To undertake administrative and operational processes to support student and enquirer requests. This includes registering students with a variety of payment methods and processing data related to student fees and funding. We also support a range of disability‑related activity and schemes for different groups of students.
• To work to a structured rota, which can be subject to on‑the‑day changes. The rota schedules the working day to ensure that all activity is dealt with promptly and ensures effective management of our workload.
• Use university systems and databases to maintain student and enquirer records, including study records and personal details whilst following agreed operating procedures.
• A commitment to continuous improvement, developing your own skills and knowledge to maintain and improve personal performance. To assist proactively in the development and improvement of internal and inter team working.

This role is contractually based in the Edinburgh office, but we do support hybrid working across our team. Currently, attendance in the office is required at least once a fortnight, with both the cost and travel time being the responsibility of the employee and not compensated by the University.

Please note that there will be more frequent attendance required for the initial 6‑week training period (3 times per week) as well as holiday leave being restricted during this period. Leave will also be restricted in the busy peak periods. Current peak periods are mid‑August to late September, and January.

• National 5 in Maths and English at Grade C or above, or equivalent.
• Recent experience of working in a customer facing environment.
• Good communication skills, both oral and written. For example; effective telephone techniques and the ability to explain policies and processes clearly and succinctly.
• Good organisational skills, including the ability to cope with heavy workloads in an often high pressure environment, while still meeting deadlines, working productively and accurately.
• Flexibility, including adaptability to changing circumstances, duties, workloads, practices, and systems.
• Commitment to excellent customer service and ongoing personal development to deliver this service.
• Strong IT skills, including use of standard Microsoft Office packages.
• An understanding of team working and the ability to work as part of a team.
• Experience of answering and…