Facilitie Assistant

A facilities assistant helps keep a building and the services inside it running day to day - heating, lighting, cleaning, security, meeting rooms, deliveries, repairs and contractor visits. They work for the organisation that occupies the building (an office, university, hospital, school, laboratory or retail site) or for an outsourced facilities management company that runs the building on a client's behalf. The job is hands-on and reactive: you are usually the first person people contact when something in the building is broken, missing, locked, too hot or too cold.

Starting salary: £22k–£28k
Live graduate jobs: Search all jobs
Main way in: Direct application is by far the most common route
They usually ask for: A degree is frequently not required

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £22,000–£28,000 to start, though this varies widely - London and large corporate or specialist sites (labs, data centres, finance offices) pay at the higher end or above it, while smaller regional sites, schools and some outsourced contracts pay at or near the lower end. Shift work, call-out duties and multi-site cover can add to this.

What you'd actually do

Walking the building on routine checks - looking at fire exits, lighting, toilets, kitchens, meeting rooms and plant areas, and logging anything that needs fixing
Taking requests from staff through a helpdesk system or ticketing inbox (a shared log of jobs), deciding what you can fix yourself and what needs a contractor or in-house engineer
Meeting contractors on arrival - signing them in, checking their paperwork such as permits to work and risk assessments, showing them to the job and checking the work afterwards
Setting up rooms and spaces: moving furniture for meetings or events, sorting out desk moves when teams relocate, checking AV kit works before a meeting starts

Show 3 more

Handling post, deliveries and stock - ordering consumables like stationery, cleaning products, first aid supplies and kitchen stock, and keeping an eye on budgets for those
Keeping compliance records up to date: fire alarm tests, emergency lighting checks, water temperature readings, asset lists and service visit records, so the building can prove it meets its legal obligations
Supporting health and safety and security - checking access passes, dealing with alarms, helping with evacuation drills and reporting incidents

How graduates get in

Direct application is by far the most common route. Many facilities assistant posts are advertised as entry-level and do not ask for a degree at all, so graduates apply alongside non-graduates and compete on attitude, reliability and any practical experience.
Graduate schemes in facilities management or real estate run by large outsourced FM providers and property consultancies. These are less common than schemes in finance or law but they do exist, and they usually rotate you across several sites and functions rather than leaving you in one building.
Internal moves within a sector you already work in - for example, starting in reception, security, catering or portering at a university, hospital or corporate site and transferring across when a facilities vacancy appears. This is a very common route.
Temping through a recruitment agency. Facilities and office services roles are often filled on short-term contracts first, and temp-to-permanent is a realistic path in.

Show 2 more

Apprenticeships in facilities management exist at various levels and are sometimes open to graduates, though graduates more often go straight into a paid role and study alongside it.
Entering through an estates or property team in the public sector - councils, NHS trusts, schools and universities recruit assistants into estates departments, often with structured pay bands.

What employers ask for

A degree is frequently not required. Where employers do ask for one, the subject rarely matters; built environment, estate management, business or geography can help you stand out but are not expected.
Most adverts ask for GCSEs including maths and English, and reliability and a clean record matter more than grades.
Some practical experience in a customer-facing or site-based job - retail, hospitality, security, reception, warehouse - is valued because it shows you can handle people and interruptions.
Basic IT confidence: email, spreadsheets and the ability to pick up a CAFM system (computer-aided facilities management software - the database used to log jobs, assets and maintenance schedules).

Show 2 more

Certificates are usually gained on the job rather than beforehand, but IOSH Working Safely or Managing Safely, a first aid at work certificate, fire marshal training or IWFM (Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management) qualifications are common and some employers fund them.
A driving licence is often required where the role covers more than one site, and some roles require a DBS check (a criminal record check) if the building is a school, hospital or other setting with vulnerable people.

Skills that matter

Prioritising competing requests

You will routinely have a blocked toilet, a failed air conditioning unit and a director wanting a meeting room set up in ten minutes, and you have to decide what genuinely cannot wait.

Basic technical literacy about buildings

Knowing roughly how heating, ventilation, lighting, water and access control systems work lets you describe a fault accurately to a contractor instead of just saying it is broken.

Record-keeping discipline

Compliance evidence - test logs, service sheets, permits - has legal weight, and a gap in the paperwork is treated as seriously as a gap in the maintenance.

Dealing with contractors confidently

You are often the only person on site checking whether a job was actually done properly, and you need to be comfortable challenging someone far more experienced than you.

Calm handling of building users

People report problems when they are already annoyed, and the assistant who explains what will happen and when becomes trusted across the organisation.

Spotting problems before they are reported

Most of the value in the role comes from noticing the dripping pipe or the propped-open fire door on a walk-round rather than waiting for a ticket.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Facilities coordinator or facilities officer - still hands-on but owning specific contracts, budgets or compliance areas rather than reacting to whatever comes in.
Facilities manager for a single building or site, managing cleaning, security and maintenance contracts and a small team. Timeframes vary a lot; some people reach this within a few years, others take considerably longer depending on how often posts come up.
Specialisation is common at this stage - health and safety, sustainability and energy management, workplace experience, space planning, or hard services (the building fabric and engineering side) versus soft services (cleaning, catering, security).
Multi-site or regional facilities manager, or an account manager role at an outsourced FM provider running a client's whole portfolio.
Senior routes include head of estates or workplace director in-house, or moving into related property fields such as building surveying or project management - these usually need further qualifications, for example IWFM membership at a higher level or a professional route via RICS.

What people get wrong

“It is basically a caretaker or handyman job, so you spend the day fixing things yourself.”

Most repairs are done by specialist contractors or qualified engineers. A large part of the job is coordinating, checking and documenting other people's work, and the administrative and compliance side can take up as much time as anything physical.

“It is a dead-end role with nowhere to go.”

Facilities management is a large profession with a clear ladder into site management, estates leadership and property. Because many people enter it sideways and without degrees, a graduate who learns the compliance and contract side can move up relatively quickly.

“You need a trade background or an engineering degree.”

Plenty of assistants come from retail, hospitality or admin. Employers generally want someone practical and dependable who will learn the systems; technical knowledge is usually built on the job and through short courses.

“The work is low-stakes.”

Fire safety, water hygiene, asbestos records and electrical testing all sit within facilities, and getting them wrong has legal consequences for the organisation. Even at assistant level you are often the person whose checks and logs provide the evidence.

Where this varies

The biggest split is between working in-house (employed by the organisation that occupies the building) and working for an outsourced facilities management provider on a client contract - in-house roles tend to be broader and more embedded in the organisation, while contract roles are more structured around agreed service levels and may move you between clients. Sector matters a lot too: a corporate office role is largely about meeting rooms, desk moves and workplace experience; a hospital, university or laboratory role involves far more technical compliance, permits and specialist plant; retail and leisure sites are more reactive and often involve evening or weekend cover. Public sector estates teams usually have defined pay bands and clearer progression steps, whereas private sector progression depends more on vacancies and the size of the portfolio. Job titles are inconsistent - the same work may be advertised as facilities assistant, office services assistant, estates assistant, workplace assistant or building services assistant.

Search Facilitie Assistant jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.