The LBU Professional

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Is the LBU Professional for me?

The LBU Professional is for everyone who works in a professional service and support role, regardless of grade or where you're are located within the university. This includes support colleagues within professional services, academic services colleagues within schools, senior managers, technical, administrative, catering, estates and facilities colleagues across all levels of the university.

The LBU Professional will...

Engage

Ensure colleagues feel valued and engaged in finding efficient ways to perform their roles.
Connect

Provide a space for collaborating, sharing expertise and rethinking processes.
Develop

Support colleagues in developing their careers and acquiring skills for future opportunities.

An in-person launch event took place on 4 February 2025. With over 80 colleagues from across the university's professional community in attendance, the launch event was an opportunity to connect with colleagues and learn more about the purpose and drivers for the LBU Professional.

Following a welcome from Tracey Lancaster, Deputy Vice Chancellor, a colleague panel discussed the importance and complexity of working together to embrace change and foster a learning culture. Colleagues then took part in taster sessions on each of the priority skills.

If you missed the launch event, you can watch the recording of Tracey's welcome talk to the right, and we'd love to see you at an upcoming LBU Professional session.

The LBU Professional launch video - Click play below to watch Tracey Lancaster's introduction from the LBU Professional launch event

Priority skills

The opportunities for colleagues to engage, connect and develop are currently aligned to the following critical skills:

Agility - including embedding change and embracing change-led innovation.
Creative thinking - including exploring process efficiencies and effective problem-solving.
Digital capability - including enhancing digital skills and leveraging digital innovations.

Delivering excellent service, tailored to individual roles, is a key focus of all LBU Professional activity.

Professional staff in higher education are a fundamental, passionate group, navigating a complex web of rules, traditions, innovations, and government initiatives. We have insights to share, experiences to unpack, and ideas to explore."

Rachel Reeds HE Professional and author of 'Surviving and Thriving in Higher Education Professional Services: a guide to success'.

Join our LBU Professional MS Teams network

Development and support

The following development and support opportunities are available for colleagues:

LBU Professional Events

Following the recent Summer Event, our plan for further events in 2026/27 will be confirmed in the coming months.

Our event so far:

- Our latest LBU Professional Summer Event took place on 30 June 2026 in the Carnegie School of Sport building. Over 90 colleagues from across the university attended as we explored the topic of 'Recognition' through an engaging keynote session by external speaker Nikki Ayles, from Art of Brilliance, and a selection of interactive workshops.

- An LBU Professional Winter Event took place on 21 January, with over 80 colleagues from across the university in attendance. Through an inspiring keynote talk by external speaker Dave Bunting MBE, a selection of interactive workshops and a fantastic colleague panel discussion, we explored 'The Power of Collaboration'.

- Our first LBU Professional Summer Event took place on 1 July 2025 in the James Graham Building. The event, focussed on bringing colleagues together and offering a valuable opportunity for connection, learning, and collaboration, was attended by over 100 colleagues.

Online resources

This learning path within MyDevelopment provides resources, activities, examples of good practice and thought-provoking perspectives on the priority skills.

These resources will continue to grow as the network evolves and we welcome contributions from across the LBU Professional community. If you have a learning resource that you believe would be valuable to share, please contact the People and OD team at POD@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

LBU Professional resources

Masterclasses

Our regular masterclasses each focus on a particular priority skill area. They include expert speakers sharing their thought provoking insights, experiences and key learning, with time given for discussions to explore the topic further.

Following a Generative AI session in May 2026, our plan for masterclasses in 2026/27 will be confirmed in the coming months.

Feedback from the masterclasses that have taken place so far can be viewed further down the page. The slides/summary document from these can be accessed via the LBU Professional MS Teams Files tab.

Autumn DEAP (Online) 11th November, 13.00-15.00

More Than You Think: Working Together to Enhance Learning and Teaching.

Great teaching doesn't happen in isolation. Some of the University's most successful learning and teaching initiatives have been built through collaboration between academic colleagues and Professional Services. Across the University, Professional Services teams contribute to curriculum design, assessment, student engagement, wellbeing, digital learning, employability, inclusion and many other aspects of learning and teaching.

This Forum brings together colleagues from across Professional Services and Academic Schools to share examples of how working in partnership has enhanced teaching, supported course development and improved the student experience. Join us to find out:

- how colleagues have worked together to address learning and teaching challenges

- the impact these collaborations have had

- what support and opportunities are available

This Forum offers an opportunity for colleagues from across our LBU community to make connections and discover new possibilities for collaboration. Access CLT's Eventbrite booking link to reserve a spot.

Booking Link

Introducing DigiHub 21 October, 10.30-11.30, Hybrid session

Library and Learning Services have launched a new Digital Capabilities Hub – DigiHub. It provides resources to help staff, researchers and students understand their current digital capabilities, access relevant support and guidance from across LBU, and identify opportunities for ongoing skills development. The hub includes:

- A searchable Resource Finder, helping you identify relevant resources and development opportunities to support your digital capabilities.

- Access to the Jisc Discovery Tool, which we’re piloting during 2026-27. The tool enables you to self-assess your digital skills across a range of digital capability areas and receive a personalised report that highlights your strengths and identifies areas for development.

Upcoming LBU Professional Session: The 'Developing your digital capabilities' session on Wednesday 21 October, 10.30-11.30am, will provide an introduction to DigiHub, alongside an opportunity to undertake a reflective self-assessment using the Jisc Discovery Tool.

Find out more about the hybrid session, and book your place, via MyDevelopment.

Booking Link

In addition to the specific LBU Professional activities above, here are some of the other learning and networking opportunities available to you:

Our Digital Capabilities Hub – DigiHub – provides resources to help staff, researchers and students understand their current digital capabilities, access relevant support and guidance from across LBU, and identify opportunities for ongoing digital skills development.

The hub includes:

A searchable Resource Finder, helping you identify relevant resources and development opportunities to support your digital capabilities.
Access to the Jisc Discovery Tool, which we are piloting during 2026-27. The tool enables you to self-assess your digital skills across a range of digital capability areas and receive a personalised report that highlights your strengths and identifies areas for development

The 'Developing your digital capabilities' session on Wednesday 21 October, 10.30-11.30am, will provide an introduction to DigiHub, alongside an opportunity to undertake a reflective self-assessment using the Jisc Discovery Tool.

Jisc's professional services AI literacy curriculum is structured as a three-session programme. Each session can be attended individually or followed as a complete pathway. We recommend attending all three sessions to get the most benefit, as each builds on the last to develop a well-rounded understanding of AI in a professional services context.

It provides an accessible entry point for professional services colleagues, with opportunities to deepen knowledge, explore specialist areas and build role-specific capability.

Find out more and view upcoming session dates via the link below.

JISC AI Training

The 'Exploring Your Career' pathway within MyDevelopment provides resources and strategies to help you take a strengths-based view of your current situation, explore your options, and achieve your career goals.

You may also find the Job Shadowing HE podcast series useful. The podcast (available on any major podcast platform) takes a deep dive into the roles of people who work in Higher Education, providing a bank of expertise and insight. Featuring guests from across the sector, each episode reveals what's involved in a specific role and the career path that led to it.

Exploring Your Career

You can access one to one support to help develop your professional skills and confidence through structured conversations with a qualified coach or experienced mentor.

Find out more via our Coaching and Mentoring webpage.

Coaching and Mentoring

Our colleague networks are vital to the university community as they facilitate a space for colleagues to share ideas and support each other. Our colleague networks are an important part of our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Our networks aim to:

Raise the visibility of our diverse communities, which make LBU a great place to work
Create community and belonging for people of shared experiences and identities
Contribute to fair and equitable decision making across the university
Provide professional development opportunities to our colleagues

Visit our Equality and Inclusion webpage or contact the EDI Team for more information

Equality and inclusion

The LBU Professional is intended to complement and fit alongside the LBU Leader, as we all have personal leadership responsibilities within our daily work.

We may have diverse leadership responsibilities within our teams and some of us have formalised leadership roles too. The LBU Leader describes the behavioural indicators and qualities, identified through our research, as being associated with effective leadership at our university.

The LBU Leader webpage presents the framework and also details a range of associated development and support opportunities.

LBU Leader

The DEAP CPD Fellowship Scheme, run by Leeds Beckett’s Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT), is open to all colleagues who support the learning of others (both colleagues and/or students). The scheme offers the opportunity to reflect on what you do and how your role connects with and impacts on the wider university, with a successful claim being a mark of a colleague’s excellence in supporting learning and teaching.

Interested colleagues can find out more, and join the waiting list, via the HEA Fellowship Programme webpage.

CLT also run a Learning Excellent Academic Practice (LEAP) Programme, also available to professional colleagues, and ideal for those who wish to develop their ability to support learning and possibly go on to make a claim for HEA Fellowship.

HEA Fellowship

We know that colleagues also operate within unique professional frameworks, specific to the needs of their role and setting. For example, CIPD for HR professionals.

Professional registrations offer valuable personal and professional development and acknowledge the tailored knowledge, skills and experience that colleagues have gained throughout their careers. As well as enhancing professional credibility and recognition, they also contribute to the overall standards and excellence of LBU.

You might like to find out about professional registrations which are relevant to your role and how this works in your local area by speaking to relevant colleagues in your School/Service.

It can be daunting joining higher education in a professional services role for the first time. Whilst LBU offer a full induction pathway, you might also find it helpful to learn more from sector experts about how the service you have joined contributes to the wider context.

Universities HR (known as ‘UHR’) are a member-led organisation who offer regular, virtual inductions for professional services colleagues. The sessions cover governance structures, opportunities and challenges facing the sector and decodes some commonly used acronyms! As LBU is a member organisation, our colleagues can access this resource free of charge.

You can watch the recordings from the sessions in December 2024 via the links below, and/or search for upcoming dates. (Please note, you will need to create a UHR account/login to access this resource.)

UHR Intro to HE

The hub includes:

A searchable Resource Finder, helping you identify relevant resources and development opportunities to support your digital capabilities.
Access to the Jisc Discovery Tool, which we are piloting during 2026-27. The tool enables you to self-assess your digital skills across a range of digital capability areas and receive a personalised report that highlights your strengths and identifies areas for development

Find out more and view upcoming session dates via the link below.

JISC AI Training

Exploring Your Career

You can access one to one support to help develop your professional skills and confidence through structured conversations with a qualified coach or experienced mentor.

Find out more via our Coaching and Mentoring webpage.

Coaching and Mentoring

Our networks aim to:

Raise the visibility of our diverse communities, which make LBU a great place to work
Create community and belonging for people of shared experiences and identities
Contribute to fair and equitable decision making across the university
Provide professional development opportunities to our colleagues

Visit our Equality and Inclusion webpage or contact the EDI Team for more information

Equality and inclusion

The LBU Professional is intended to complement and fit alongside the LBU Leader, as we all have personal leadership responsibilities within our daily work.

The LBU Leader webpage presents the framework and also details a range of associated development and support opportunities.

LBU Leader

Interested colleagues can find out more, and join the waiting list, via the HEA Fellowship Programme webpage.

HEA Fellowship

We know that colleagues also operate within unique professional frameworks, specific to the needs of their role and setting. For example, CIPD for HR professionals.

You might like to find out about professional registrations which are relevant to your role and how this works in your local area by speaking to relevant colleagues in your School/Service.

UHR Intro to HE

Feedback from our sessions so far:

Click the right and left arrows to view some of the feedback from the sessions so far

Summer event 2026 feedback - Average 9/10 rating

“A really great event, so much positivity, which is much needed! Great to have had the VC there too, to acknowledge the role of professional services colleagues."

“Really enjoyed it, thank you for organising. It's good to step away from the day to day work and remember there can be more. Also, it was great to be around other colleagues"

"Really interesting topic and engaging delivery. The activities were thought provoking without feeling too heavy."
Getting Started with Gen AI, with Becky Sellers and Stewart Johnston - Average 8/10

“It was a helpful grounding in AI - I didn't really know where to start with it so it was useful to have a baseline session. They suggested ways of using AI which I hadn't previously considered."

“It was really interesting with lots of useful information."

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

"Use prompts in a smarter way to get more out of the tools I use."
Summer event feedback - Average 9.3/10 rating

“I really appreciated the chance to attend today’s event - it’s always great to be able to network in person, engage in positive activities and be made to feel valued.”

“Thank you very much for organising this valuable day. It was great to get some headspace outside of the day-to-day work to focus on my own development and reflect on the bigger picture.”
Unlocking Creative Thinking, with Sheila Ball - Average 9/10

"I really enjoyed this session. Sheila ran it expertly. A great mix of new information with some practical exercises."

"Really thought provoking, very good."

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

"I will use the new thinking conversations approaches when I am brainstorming ideas with other people."

"Practice listening more and showing appreciation."
Winter event feedback - Average 9.4/10 rating

“This was one of my favourite sessions, it was fantastic to have a chance to meet and collaborate with colleagues. I felt really inspired following this and believe this will have a positive impact on my work. Would love to see more of these events."

“A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to the planning and delivery of such a great CPD event!"

"Fantastic talk. Engaging, inspirational and something that generated lots of ideas and learning that can be applied within professional roles here at the university. Thank you!"
Career Adaptability, with Meg Burton - Average 9/10

“ Having never done a course like this I was a bit skeptical going in but found it really useful. The breakout rooms were also great, giving me the opportunity to speak to new people and helping me to consider different views to the questions. Thank you."

"Some really great coaching and guidance around questions to think about when it comes to career direction."

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

" Start a Personal Development Plan and have an accountability partner to steer my plan in the right direction."
The power of positive psychology masterclass, with Sophie Cliff - Average 9.4/10 rating

“This session was so good! Sophie was brilliant, it was a really great session, a good balance of information and reflection/talking to colleagues. It was really beneficial and inspiring.”

“Good to have some realistic and practical tools to take into the workplace. Enjoyed the mix of theory, self-reflection and group chats.”

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

“I’m going to give myself more time to reflect on the things that have gone well and celebrate my colleagues more!”

“Be more mindful of my own strengths and check in with myself more often on how I'm feeling.”
Is Generative AI for me, with Danny Mirza - Average 9.1/10

“Absolutely brilliant session. Probably the best session I've attended in years, the content was so relevant and new. Danny was so passionate and knowledgeable and blew my mind with some of the capabilities of AI."

“It was absolutely brilliant. What a fantastic presenter, and the content was engaging and really informative."

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

"Start to use AI more in my daily work - I was amazed at its capabilities in terms of helping with putting together reports, summaries, presentations, creating interesting visuals etc. I definitely think the session helped to open up a world I've been avoiding for a while!"
Harnessing positive disruption and unleashing your potential, with Rachel Reeds - Average 9.1/10

“It was a really empowering session, with lots of practical things to go away and think about. It was also good to meet other members of the university’s professional community that I had not met before.”

“It was very informative and made you think about yourself and your role at work.”

What will you do differently as a result of the session?

“I will deﬁnitely try to speak up more, advocate for myself, and make small changes.”

“I will create space for teams and colleagues to contribute and share ideas.”
Launch event feedback - Average 8.8/10 rating

“It was great to meet colleagues from across the university. The thought provoking, practical activities to help connect with colleagues from other services.”

“A variety of activities made the time go really quickly. Really enjoyed the taster sessions and hearing from different people from across the university.”

Image of library setting with laptop in the foreground

Image of two people working on a crafts project

A key aim of the LBU Professional is to empower colleagues to identify, create and maximise collaboration opportunities across the university. To support this, we'll look to develop and showcase case studies of effective, practical initiatives, such as working groups, action learning sets and job shadowing.

Get Involved: We’d love to hear from you if you have a story to share or an interest in exploring a particular opportunity linked to any aspect of the LBU Professional. Please get in touch with us.

Your experiences and ideas can inspire and guide others. Let’s work together to foster a culture of collaboration and continuous learning at LBU.