Opening hours

Our standard operating hours are:

During assessment periods, the buildings will operate extended opening hours for FSE staff and students and via swipe-card access only.

Please refer to the University's Key Dates site for further details on these periods.

Colleagues looking to work in the home of Engineering and Materials outside of normal opening hours should familiarise themselves with our 'Out of hours working - access arrangments'

For navigation purposes (e.g directing visitors to the building), our general building address is:

Engineering Building A

The University of Manchester 

Oxford Road

M13 9PL

For delivery of mail or parcels, please use the address below so these can be sorted in the Central postroom and find their way to you, wherever you're based inside workspace:

[FAO Full name]

Building, Floor, Core, Office / Desk No.

The University of Manchester

M13 9PL

Further infromation can be found via our Post and delivery management page

You can review some of our building processes below:

• Post and delivery management
• Out of hours access arrangements
• Meeting with students in the home of Engineering and Materials
• Meeting visitors in the home of Engineering and Materials

The full list of University-wide policies and processes are available here.

Our Service Delivery Team is responsible for operations here in Engineering Buildings A & B, helping to resolve issues for colleagues and responding to any queries or suggestions for ways to improve your experience. You can reach the team however suits you best:

Email: TEAM@Manchester.ac.uk

Phone: 0161 529 4187 (9:00am and 5:00pm, Monday to Friday)

In Person: Service Delivery Office (Room 1A.045) - Engineering Building A, First Floor, Core Three (adjacent to the Student Support Hub) 9:00am and 5:00pm, Monday to Friday.

Daily walkarounds of the building: If you spot a member of our team – look out for our red hoodies! – then feel free to flag us down and we’ll try and assist you as best we can.

The team have also recently launched a new reporting tool to provide a new way to get in touch and make sure your query, issue or feedback is triaged to the right place.

In order for access to be granted to your workspce, you must complete your mandatory health and safety indcution via Blackboard. Once this has been completed, please email TEAM@manchester.ac.uk to confirm completion and please allow up to 48 hours for activation to be enabled on your card.

If you're a technical colleague, you must complete an additional technical induction in order for swipe-card access to be granted to your laboratory or workshop.

Further information and links to building inductions are available via our New starter information page.

Please note, if your swipe-card is either lost or stolen or has expired, then you will need to arrange to collect a new swipe-card from People and Organisational Development Team on the Second Floor of the Simon Building.

Outside of normal building operating hours, staff and PGR entry to Engineering Buildings A & B is by swipe card access only, to ensure the safety and security of all staff and students. If you require access beyond these times, you’ll need to ensure your pass has been activated to allow for extended access, the process for which will differ depending on where you work:

Laboratories, workshops and technical areas

• Risk Assessment. A risk assessment should be undertaken. If you require support completing this please contact your Safety Advisor or the Safety Team via fse.safety@manchester.ac.uk
• Line Manager/Supervisor Approval. Please discuss your requirements to work outside of the normal building opening hours with your line manager/supervisor and ensure that they are happy to approve your request. In some cases approval is required from your Head of Department, in line with your standard Departmental process. Contact your Deputy School Operations Manager if you need advice or guidance on this process. 

Please provide confirmation of approval from your Manager/Supervisor and Head of Department (where relevant) along with your request for card activation to TEAM@manchester.ac.uk

Office working only

• Line Manager Approval. Please discuss your requirements to work outside of the normal building opening hours with your line manager/supervisor in the first instance and ensure that they are happy to approve your request. 
• Risk Assessment. You should review the Faculty’s standard risk assessment for office working and ensure that it’s fit for purpose for your out of hours working arrangements. If it meets your needs, no further action is needed. Should you have any questions about this process or need support please contact your Safety Advisor or the Safety Team via fse.safety@manchester.ac.uk

All staff/PGRs

In addition, all colleagues and PGRs are advised to also consider the following:

• FSE guidance on personal safety during lone working and out of hours
• Guidance on lone working from Safety Services 

Receiving mail and deliveries

Any incoming mail or deliveries should be sent to the John Owens postroom address below for sorting, with your name and workspace location clearly listed so this can find its way to you as quickly as possible, as provided below:

[FAO Full name]

Building, Floor, Core, Office / Desk No.

The University of Manchester

M13 9PL

From here, any mail or letterbox-sized Royal Mail deliveries will be delivered to your local postal point - find your nearest postal point location here. Any larger deliveries or those containing hazardous susbtances will be receipted by York Street Building Stores who will contact you via your University email and ask you to come and collect your item(s).

Sending mail and deliveries

To send any mail or letterbox-sized deliveries via Royal Mail, you can drop these off at your nearest postal point and leave these in the "Out" tray, where a member of House Services will take these to York Street Building Stores to be posted. For larger deliveries, please take these to York Street Building Stores, where colleagues will take your information and ensure you have provided any necessary labels and courier information before processing this for delivery.

To send any items containing hazardous substances from the University, please contact fse.safety@manchester.ac.uk in the first instance, for advice on next steps, which will be dependent on the nature of the item.

Four-person meeting rooms (for meetings with staff)

There are 75 four-person meeting rooms across the four workspace floors, providing a space for in-person or virtual meetings which may be confidential or sensitive in nature, or potentially noisy and disruptive if taken in the open plan space.  

For academic colleagues (as well as administrative PS colleagues supporting academics), all four-person meeting rooms are available to view and book via Resource Booker.

For Professional Services colleagues, a total of 37 meeting rooms are available to book via Resource Booker, with a further 37 rooms available for PGRs and PDRAs. When logging into the platform, these will appear in a tile in the homepage as either "FSE MECD PS staff" or "FSE MECD PDRA and PGR" depending on which group you belong to.

As a rule of thumb for all colleagues, if a room is unoccupied you should first check the availability of the room via Resource Booker - if the room is not in use after 10 minutes of a booking's start time, this can be used by any colleague.

Meet and teach rooms (for meetings with students)

8 – 20 capacity meet and teach rooms throughout the Ground to Third Floor of Engineering Building A are available for colleagues to book via Resource Booker. 

Larger meet and teach rooms (ranging from 30 – 80 capacity) are predominantly used for teaching but, where free, may be bookable through contacting the Central Timetabling Team at cts@manchester.ac.uk 

CTS-managed spaces (for larger meetings and events)

Larger spaces such our blended theatres, computer clusters and interconnected rooms are all managed by our Central Timetabling Team and won’t appear on Resource Booker. To enquire about their availability or to book these spaces, please contact the team at cts@manchester.ac.uk  

Throughout the building, you’ll find comprehensive signage (both ceiling mounted and door signage) to help you find your way around. Some general principles around the layout of the building and how room numbers work are available in the Building User Guide under ‘wayfinding and access’.  

For additional support getting from A to B, we recommend trying out our digital map. Using Google Mapping technology, this map provides a host of features including:

• Planning a route – by walking, by public transport, by cycling or by driving to the building
• Search any location and plan your journey through the building 
• “You are here” positioning information 
• Accessible routing
• Room descriptions and photography plus links to Resource Booker

Access the map here