Do I need to contact the university to let them know that I have submitted my revisions? I sent them straight to my examiner and he advised me to do...

No you shouldn't need to. Just relax :)

It's just I got no confirmation of receipt and I have no idea how these things work so a bit worried that they might just think I've disappeared if my examiner doesn't inform them... I literally have no idea how these things work.

You are worrying far too much. You have sent the corrections. Give the examiner time to deal with them.

I don't think that's fair. My misunderstanding was regarding the deadline being for both of myself and my examiner, and my second concern was that my university may wonder what is going on if neither my examiner nor I let them know. I have no friends who have completed PhDs, so I am out of the loop regarding expectations.

Hi Thesis_issues,

Every university will have a different procedure. Ideally you should have a postgraduate/graduate administrator of some sort either in your department/school and/or faculty who should be able to direct you. At my university corrections are resubmitted to the institute of graduate research, which is a centralised graduate centre that handles all graduate stuff regardless of discipline (STEM, Arts etc). They then send the corrections out to examiners if examiners require them, and set a deadline for the examiners.

Not having friends having done a PhD isn't an excuse for not familiarising yourself with your university's practices, becuase each university will have a different practice regarding PhD correction submissions. So, it wouldn't even matter if you had friends who did a PhD unless they did a PhD at your university and perhaps in your department if you do not have a centralised system. I would recommend getting in contact with your graduate school centre if you have one, or the equivalent to find out the next steps. There should also be perhaps a website or webpage that outlines the process, although not every university does this.

As for deadline, again it really depends as to whether your university will set a deadline. That deadline you had was most likely only to submit your corrections, it does not include your examiners' review. They will probably be given anywhere from a month to 6 months to review, and again, it depends as to whether your university follows up, sets the deadline themselves etc. That review time may or may not take into account that you submitted early.