What’s the job?
We are looking for a passionate and dynamic individual to join our team and drive forward academic representation. The main parts of the role are:
- Empowering Student Reps – Recruit, train, and support our Department Officers, Class Reps, and Postgrad Reps - giving them skills and confidence to be the voice of their peers.
- Enabling the VP Academic to Lead Student Voice – Provide vital support to help them shape campaigns, prep for key meetings, and confidently champion students in academic decision-making.
- Amplifying Student Feedback – Work with our 6 Schools and 28 Departments to make sure student voices shape learning and teaching.
- Delivering Training & Resources – Develop and run training sessions, toolkits, and resources to equip student reps with everything they need to influence academic decisions.
- Organising Academic Events – Plan and deliver big moments like Department Officer Meetings, Rep Celebrations and the Learning & Teaching Oscars - celebrating achievements and keeping academic conversations lively and impactful.
- Tracking Student Voice Impact – Monitor academic feedback trends, produce reports, and make sure our representation structures keep evolving to make a difference for students.
You don’t need to be an expert in academic policy – if you’re passionate about empowering students, highly organised, collaborative by nature, and good at turning insight into action, we want to hear from you.
This is a full-time role – working 35 hours per week, usually Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm. Flexibility is expected as some evening and weekend work may be required, especially around big events or campaign launches.
Who are we?
We are Heriot-Watt University Student Union - an independent charity that is run by and for students. While we are a charity we also run trading services (food & drink venues and shop) that aim to make a surplus. We use this surplus to invest in other vital student support services such as advice & support and volunteering.
Ultimately our main goal is to make sure that Heriot-Watt students have THE BEST TIME whilst studying here. Our purpose is clear and simple – to put Students First, Always. We live by five values – we are fun, welcoming, brave, empowering and student focused.
You’ll join a friendly, hardworking and professional team and have a real opportunity to make a difference to our members – while having some fun along the way. We have a display of staff baby photos in our office, and a gallery of our photocopied faces which we will probably ask you to add to!
What do you get?
You will be paid between £25,000 - £28,000 per year (depending on experience). 28 days holiday plus 9 fixed days (Christmas, New Year and Easter). You will be enrolled in our Pension scheme to which the Union will contribute, plus you’ll get that warm fuzzy feeling inside that you’re helping the students of HW make the most of their time at University.
WHAT WOULD A Typical Day look like?
You start your day by grabbing a cuppa and checking your emails and messages, making sure there are no urgent queries from reps or university staff that need your attention. One message catches your eye – a rep who’s feeling nervous about attending their first meeting with a university staff member. You reply with reassurance, offer a quick prep call, and send them your favourite slide from the training deck: “You don’t need to have all the answers – you just need to ask the right questions.”
Next on the agenda: Class Rep training. With hundreds of reps about to be recruited, you're finalising the content for this year’s training sessions – adding updated information about changes to our representation structures and updating examples based on recent feedback. You meet with the VP Academic to walk through the session plan together, agreeing who’ll lead which sections and bouncing around a few ideas for how to make it more interactive.
Afterwards, you’re off to meet with the Staff Rep in one of the Schools. You're building relationships across the University and today’s meeting is about shaping how reps will feed into course-level conversations. You bring examples of what’s worked well elsewhere and talk about ways to make meetings more student-friendly. They’re receptive, and you leave with a few actions and the promise of an academic coffee soon.
Back at your desk, you review the draft Rep Handbook – making sure it covers everything new reps might need to feel prepared and confident. You fire off a quick email to the Marketing team asking for help fine tuning it and making sure it looks great.
Later in the day, you meet with the VP Academic for your weekly catch-up. You talk them through upcoming university committees and flag a couple of items where student feedback is especially relevant – including concerns around dissertation supervision raised at the last Department Officer meeting. You offer to help write a short briefing for one of the meetings and make a note to gather some additional feedback to strengthen the case.
After lunch, you’re hosting a drop-in for returning Department Officers. One of them brings up a new piece of software being trialled in their School – students are unsure how it's being used for assessment. You help them draft a few clear points to take to their next Student-Staff Liaison Committee and suggest a follow-up conversation with the VP Academic.
Once the drop-in wraps up, you check in with the other Student Engagement Coordinators to make sure you're aligned on upcoming projects – including shared messaging for Welcome Week, co-delivering some cross-team training, and avoiding any event clashes. You flag a couple of things you've picked up in meetings that might be useful across the team.
Before wrapping up, you log into your planning spreadsheet and double-check your timeline for the Learning & Teaching Oscars – it feels ages away, but you know term flies past quickly. You pencil in a few key dates and send a quick message to the Advice team to see if they’d like to collaborate on an academic integrity campaign that could lead into the awards season.
You close your laptop knowing you’ve helped shape the start of the year for student reps – and you’re laying the groundwork for real, long-term academic change.
Is this job for you?
Please download the Job Description below for a full list of the essential, desirable, and person criteria to make sure you're a good fit. But before you dive in, if you answer yes to these questions, then this job might be right up your street!
- Do you believe students should have real power to shape their education – and know how to help make that happen?
- Are you great at building relationships with both students and staff, and confident working across teams to get things done?
- Can you support elected student leaders to thrive – offering practical support, clear advice, and a bit of encouragement when it’s needed?
- Are you proactive and organised, able to juggle multiple projects without losing sight of the details?
- Can you turn student feedback into useful insight – and then help others turn that insight into action?
- Are you comfortable planning and delivering engaging training or events, from small group sessions to larger student forums?
- Do you want to work in a collaborative, purpose-driven team that shares ideas and supports each other?
- And finally – are you excited by the idea of working in a values-based organisation that’s fun, welcoming, empowering, brave, and relentlessly student-focused?
If you’re nodding along and thinking, “Yep, that’s me!” then we’d love to hear from you.
If you’re not yet sure and want to have an informal chat about the job please contact Genna Nesbitt, Head of Student Engagement on g.nesbitt@hw.ac.uk.
Sounds great, what next?
Click here to download the full Job Description and Person Specification for this role.
If this sounds like the job for you, click Apply Now and fill in our online application form.
We’ve been seeing a lot of very similar applications recently – possibly thanks to the rise of AI. So, if you want to stand out, take a little extra time to tell us why this role excites you, what you’ll bring to the team, and how you connect with our values.
We don’t need a perfect essay – we just want to hear your voice.