Business Administration Career Pathway
What Is a Business Administrator?
Business administration is a broad career area. Administrators are responsible for the day to day running of business operations. Their role can include a multitude of different tasks. However, their main goal is to ensure that the business runs smoothly, is controlled, and meets financial goals. Furthermore, the role will include dealing with lots of paperwork, filing and more.
In addition, business administrators work solely from an office space and can expect to be in regular contact with those in other departments of the business.
The role is highly management focused and carries a significant amount of responsibility in keeping a business controlled and stable.
Specific job responsibilities may include:
- Scheduling meetings
- Organising paperwork
- Handling queries via email
- Co-ordinating deadlines and dates
- Creating spreadsheets
The average salary of an administrator is usually around £19K a year, but in senior-level positions, this can rise up to £30k+.
What Education Does An Administrator Need?
Bachelor’s Degree
In order to get a high up business administration role, a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration may be a suitable option. Moreover, you could also take a straightforward business degree or a business and management degree. There are so many different types of degree in this subject area which have slightly different focuses.
The great news is that it is not essential that you have a bachelor’s degree qualification to become a business administrator. There are many businesses that will be more experienced with your past experience with admin skills. However, if you do wish to increase those chances and get ahead of the job competition, you could consider taking one of our courses.
Certificate Courses
We have 2 certificate courses in Business Administration. We offer a Level 2 Certificate and a Level 3 Certificate.
Within the Level 2 Certificate, you can expect to learn about:
- Providing administrative services
- Producing business documents
- Communicating effectively
- Working relationships with colleagues… and more.
Within the more advanced Level 3 Certificate, you can expect to learn:
- Principles of Business
- Business Communication and Information
- Principles and Methods of Administration
- A choice of 4 additional modules including understanding the legal context of business, and equality and diversity in the workplace.
HND Courses
Another popular way to obtain qualifications that will be valuable to get a job as a business administrator is HND Business courses.
These courses are equivalent to the first 2 years of a degree and can be topped up to a full degree with one year at university. Further, here at the College of Contract Management, we offer an HND in Business which will provide you with many of the skills you need to be an administrator.
Experience Requirements
In order to get your ideal job within business administration, you need to obtain work experience. There are many roles which you may have previously worked in that would be appropriate experience. For example, perhaps you worked within another role but from time to time had to carry out administrative duties. Furthermore, it would be ideal to volunteer. This would not only be a guaranteed way to get experience, but you would also be giving back to the community. Further, many charities need administrative positions to ensure that the organisation can continue to be beneficial.
Key Skills of a Business Administrator
Business administration requires some key skills that are really important to ensure the job is done well. These include:
- Organisation
The first key skill is fairly obvious, as an administrator you need to be able to organise your workload, create schedules and more. Without organisation, the business operations would fall apart.
- Excel, Microsoft Office
The second skill is in regard to hard skills (as opposed to soft). Many business administrations will need to be comfortable using excel, word, PowerPoint and more. Therefore, it would be very useful to take a certification course in Excel before you applied for jobs as this is heavily used.
- Deal Well Under Pressure
The administrator role can be stressful at busy seasons of the business. Therefore, you must be able to deal well under the pressure and ensure that your organisation does not decline during this time.
Career Development
A business administrator career can allow you to enter a senior level position over time as well as allow you to progress to Executive Assistant roles. If you have lots of experience, it is common to be asked to work closely with the directors and managers of the business which can allow you to get a higher salary.
Furthermore, you may decide that the skills you have learnt inspire you to begin your own business. After all, you would already have lots of skills that would be useful in a startup.
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