Information for students
Being a Student Ambassador is a great way to get involved with the University, have fun and gain valuable skills.
When is the next recruitment?
Our Spring Semester recruitment has now closed. We will be recruiting again in September 2024 for Postgraduate Student Ambassadors. Full details of who can apply will be posted here when recruitment opens. If you would like to be updated when you can apply please sign up to our mailing list using the Student Ambassador interest form.
Student Ambassador interest form
What are student ambassadors?
Student Ambassadors are an essential part of the University’s recruitment and pre-arrival activity. The ideal candidate is someone who is enthusiastic about sharing their authentic student experience with prospective students and their supporters. Ambassadors will have opportunities to represent the University, their School and their academic programme to internal and external audiences.
Ambassadors will receive specific training to support the activity that is expected of them.
Hear from our Ambassadors about their experience as a Student Ambassador:
Overall, my experience as a Student Ambassador at the University of Edinburgh has been one of the highlights from my time at the university. I was able to improve my communication, organisational and time management skills and was able to choose my shifts based on my own availability, which was very helpful during my postgraduate degree.
Pay and contracts
The details below are correct for our Spring 2024 recruitment and are left up as a guideline. This will be updated when we open recruitment again in September 2024.
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Student Ambassadors are guaranteed a minimum of 10 hours of work in each year of their contract. Work only needs to be accepted if they are available but we encourage active participation throughout the year in a variety of roles.
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The work is also flexible around your studies – there are no set hours per week or month. Whilst this work cannot offer a frequent income, it does offer valuable work experience.
- Student Ambassadors are paid £12.04 per hour (plus 18% in lieu of annual leave allowances) - updated February 2024.
There are lots of bits of work throughout the year that are offered to ambassadors that we don't know of until nearer the time but here is an indication of how the year will look so you have an idea:
September: Pretty busy with Welcome Week work opportunities
October: Campus Tours and Open Days (guaranteed work) – second busiest month of the year
November: Campus Tours and Postgraduate Open Day (These tend to be online and there will be a lot of work but we can’t guarantee for all)
December: This is a very quiet month for work and there are no Campus Tours
January: This is also traditionally a quieter month but Campus Tours will be on
February: This is also traditionally quieter but more work starts coming through and there are Campus Tours
March: Work starts increasing to support offer holder events and there are Campus Tours
April: Campus Tours and Offer Holder events – this is our busiest month and we are aware it is also very busy with your studies. If you can try and effectively time manage both there is plenty of work opportunities and staff really want your help at the offer holder events.
May: Starts to get quieter but there are Campus Tours and the Postgraduate Online Learning Open Days
June: Undergraduate Open Day (guaranteed work) tends to happen and there are Campus Tours
July: Tends to be quieter but there are Campus Tours and less people around so higher chance of getting shifts
Student Ambassador essential information:
The work is varied and dependent on ability, interest and availability. It includes but is not limited to participating in activities that allow you to share your student experience with prospective students and their supporters. For example:
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Campus Tours
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Assisting with in person events e.g. Open Days, Offer Holder events and Welcome events.
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Student panels
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Peer-to-peer text chat
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Assisting with online events
- Blogging/vlogging
- Social media content creation
- Participating in photo shoots/video, focus groups and other marketing activity
- Opportunity to be involved with wider University activities, for example graduations
Essential (this will be updated when recruitment opens again in September 2024)
- Matriculated on-campus undergraduate student at the University of Edinburgh during the 2024/25 academic years
- Reside in the UK during the 2024/2025 academic year
- Be able to attend an online interview via MS Teams (date TBC)
- Excellent communication skills, verbally and in writing
- Awareness of equality and diversity
- Passionate about the university experience and the University of Edinburgh in particular
- Represent the University with integrity, professionalism and enthusiasm
- Friendly, approachable and happy to initiate contact with prospective students and/or their supporters
- Reliable with excellent time-management and organisational skills
- Willingness to follow instruction
- Excellent team working skill
- Self-motivated to work on individual tasks
- Basic IT skills eg. use of Microsoft Office suite
- Access to a desktop, laptop or smart device
Desirable
- Able to attend our training day. This is a full-day paid training session. There will also be additional training required in addition to the full days training. Student Ambassador training is mandatory
- Previous customer service experience or having held a similar ambassador type role
- Awareness of the barriers people might face when accessing Higher Education
- Availability to work our Open Day events
- Availability to work future weekend events
Graduating this academic year
If you are graduating this academic year but still interested in being an ambassador for the University, sign up to be an Alumni Ambassador
Need Help?
If you have any questions about the position or the application that are not answered on this page please contact the Student Ambassador team: email student.ambassadors@ed.ac.uk