IT Service Desk Customer Service Apprentice - IT Services - 108068AP - Apprentice Grade 4

Position Details

IT Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary £22,037. per annum, rising to £27,546. per annum after 12 months service

Apprentice Grade 4

Full Time

Fixed term contract for 18 months

Apprenticeship Standard: Customer Service Practitioner Level 2

Training Provider: HIT Training

Closing date: 11^th October 2026 - Please upload a CV with your application.

Eligibility: The training delivered in apprenticeships is funded through the apprenticeship levy which is subject to Department for Education funding rules for apprenticeships. When reviewing applications the University and the training provider will be checking candidates meet this eligibility criteria. Further information is available on our webpage. 

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Apprenticeship summary

The IT Service Desk is the public face of the University’s IT Services department. The Service Desk handles everything from individual technical problems to system outages. They are a single point of contact for our users - helping them to easily find solutions, request help, and contact other IT teams.

The post holder is primarily responsible for learning how to analyse new issues and requests. This includes taking phone calls from users or helping them in-person, as well as online using live chat and our web-based contact form. They are empowered to resolve most queries, and accurately assign more complicated or time-consuming issues to other colleagues.

Team members are expected to contribute individually and within a collaborative working environment. This helps us to deliver excellent customer service and meet our service standards. The post holder should demonstrate the values of the IT Service Desk by maintaining open and honest communication, collaborating with others and being inclusive and approachable.

This apprenticeship would suit:

The apprenticeship would suit an individual with a positive attitude towards the provision of exceptional customer service in a demanding IT environment. They will be a people person, polite, approachable and welcoming, able to talk to customers face to face, over the phone or via electronic medium. They will be confident, able to build strong relationships with team members and customers. They will be hard working, calm under pressure with a strong desire to learn.

Main duties the apprentice will learn:

• Providing first line IT support to staff, students, and visitors, via all the Service Desk’s contact methods.
• Ensuring all contact with users is recorded accurately in the IT Service Management tool.
• Identifying trends within recent and ongoing issues by monitoring incoming incident records and collaborating with colleagues.
• Utilising skills, experience, and documented knowledge to provide solutions to users for the majority of reported issues.
• Accurately triage more complex or time-consuming issues to other support teams, by building a thorough understanding of our services and support teams.
• Developing a broad understanding of the University’s organisational structure, business functions, strategic aims, and key stakeholders to accurately assess the impact of issues.
• Participating in ITIL-based Incident and Problem Management in line with documented processes.
• Updating the IT Services Status Page and social media in response to service outages.
• Occasionally carrying out remote desktop support to resolve minor issues.
• Ensuring that technical solutions are documented within the IT Service Management tool for future reference.
• Being an advocate for our users and escalate whenever IT support is falling below expected levels, to ensure issues are resolved in acceptable timescales and excellent customer service is delivered.
• Contributing to the creation and maintenance of knowledge base articles, ensuring documentation is easy to follow, written in Plain English and tailored to the correct audience.
• Any other duties that may reasonably be required in line with your position within IT Services or to help deliver excellent customer service.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience 

• Minimum GCSE grade 4 in English Language and Mathematics (or equivalent level 2 vocational qualifications including demonstrable examples of the required level of literacy and numeracy).
• A commitment to excellent customer service.
• Good oral and written communication with the ability to tailor responses to specific audiences. 
• The ability to work effectively as a member of a team towards quality service goals and deadlines. 
• The ability to prioritise and schedule workload in the face of conflicting demands. 
• A structured and methodical approach to troubleshooting and problem solving.
• A willingness to adopt and champion new ways of working.
• An understanding of the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
• The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures
• A basic working knowledge in one of the following (and familiarity with the other):
  1. Microsoft Windows 
  2. Mac OS X
• Basic knowledge of mobile devices including tablets and smartphones.
• The ability to maintain an open and approachable demeanour.
• The ability to maintain a high level of accuracy under pressure.

You will be expected to engage fully with the University of Birmingham apprenticeship scheme, attending mandatory group days and contributing to the successful promotion of the scheme by representing your department in a positive manner.

Planning and Organising 

Contact points are assigned according to a rota. You will assign and prioritise your own workload and are expected to work in line with documented prioritisation guidelines to ensure issues are resolved within customer expectations.

You will need to maintain an overview of other contact points and the workload of colleagues and react appropriately to changes in demand and refer workload issues to your manager.

Problem Solving and Decision Making 

You will use your skills, experience, and documented knowledge, to match solutions to user issues. A basic level of troubleshooting will be learned.

You will be required to assess the impact of issues on the business functions of the University quickly and accurately, and prioritise and escalate issues where required.

Complex issues will be referred to more experienced colleagues or specialist support teams.

You will be able to proactively suggest improvements related to IT Service Desk processes and procedures.

Internal and External Relationships

As the first point of contact for IT Services you will learn to liaise with a wide range of staff, students, and visitors. To help deliver excellent customer service communication will always be open, honest, and tailored to the user’s technical ability.

You will need to build and maintain good relationships with colleagues across IT Services to ensure the timely delivery of solutions to users.

Career Pathway

Technical Support Analyst

Desktop Support Specialist

Team Leader

For enquiries please email: [email protected]

View our staff values and behaviours here 

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview. 

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.