King's College London

THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

About us:

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced and motivated senior professional services manager or education administration leader to join the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, to lead on the provision of all faculty academic administrative processes in support of our world-class education, including an established Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes portfolio.

The IoPPN is a Faculty of King's College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease.  The IoPPN's greatest strength is the interdisciplinary nature of both its research strategy and educational activities, providing unique opportunities for students and staff. You can find out more here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/index.aspx 

About the role:

We are seeking an experienced professional that has demonstrable experience of delivering an excellent student experience for programme portfolio management in a fast-paced and demanding subject area, and can provide seamless cover over the course of the year. The role is an ideal opportunity for a professional services education manager looking to advance and take on more responsibility.

The post holder will own and manage processes and systems across these areas, developing strong operational expertise and an understanding of local needs. Working independently and collaboratively within the Faculty Business Operations team, they will use sound judgement to solve problems, identify risks, and set short- and long-term priorities to ensure effective service delivery.

Working closely with the Dean of Education, Professional Services colleagues, academic leaders and a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, the role will contribute to the delivery of efficient, compliant and high-quality operations. The post holder will make timely, informed decisions that have a tangible impact across the Faculty.

The role holder will be expected to represent the faculty perspective and feed in to large scale university level transformational projects impacting educational offerings, such as the KCL Student Services Review.

The role includes line management responsibility for a Senior Programme Managers and oversight of local education support processes as well as financial oversight of staffing operations and budgets. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced, proactive manager with strong problem-solving skills who is committed to continuous improvement, team development and enhancing the staff and student experience, with clear opportunities for career progression and professional development within the University.

Reporting to the Faculty Director of Operations, the post holder will have a dotted line to the Executive Director of Education and Students and be an active member of the Education & Students Functional Leadership Team of the university. The key responsibilities of this role are effective operational leadership over a defined portfolio of education and student professional services within the faculty. The postholder will have a responsibility to contribute to the health of education and the student experience within the faculty and across King’s.

As an Associate Director of Education, you will be deployed to work within the education function, across teams and other functions, engaging with a wide range of colleagues to ensure a positive student experience is delivered in line with university timelines and planned milestones for the IoPPN.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week) and you will be offered a 12-month maternity cover contract from August 2026.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Leadership and management skills working within a diverse and empowered team across a large faculty / education delivery unit
2. Prior experience of providing education support in higher education OR acquired knowledge and understanding of issues in higher education services
3. Application of evidence-based analytical, creative, and constructive thinking for effective change management.
4. Ability to be deployed into a team and rapidly develop working relationship with key team members to deliver the needed objectives
5. Ability to build, sustain and develop relationships at all levels, internally and externally, using persuasion and influence to achieve agreed objectives.
6. Highly effective communication skills attuned to audience requirements and delivered in different formats.
7. Ability to engage in collaborative working across the university’s  professional services, other faculties, academic and student communities
8. Experience of delivering high value-add services, delivering at pace with accuracy and to high-quality benchmarks.

Desirable criteria

1. A good understanding of the breadth of education delivery in a health sciences /clinical-based Faculty and/or commissioned programmes
2. Experience of securing compliance with internal or external regulatory requirements.
3. Ability to act as a high-respect, high-challenge leadership partner
4. Experience of contributing to or managing localised change within a team and engaging with broader change programmes

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university. The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination. When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held in May 2026.