Head of Digital Assessment & Product Strategy
Office Location: Greenwich, London/ Hybrid (home working with some required office days throughout the year)
Type of contract: Permanent, Full-time
Salary: Competitive
Job purpose
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Head to lead the fast-growing assessment products within the Oxford International Digital Institute – the ELLT (English Language Level Test) and ELLT Spotlight. This role is responsible for the strategic development, continuous enhancement and successful delivery of our digital assessment platform, serving a diverse range of clients including schools, universities, and educational institutions, and an expanding corporate sector.
Main duties and responsibilities
Product & Educational Market Strategy
- Define, own and manage the product roadmap for online testing solutions tailored to the needs of educational institutions and corporate partners, ensuring alignment with the evolving needs of educational institutions, corporate partners, and international learners.
- Ensure all product development is guided by a strong market-led approach, compliant with relevant regulatory, data protection, and quality assurance standards (e.g., CEFR, GDPR). Collaborate with the Technical Development Manager and wider tech teams to ensure development timelines, specifications, and feature releases align with market expectations and learner experience.
- Lead regular market discovery cycles, including competitor reviews, focus groups, and pilot programmes to validate product direction. Ensure accessibility, cultural responsiveness, and educational value are consistently prioritised.
- Maintain a clear understanding of assessment best practice and digital learning innovations, incorporating these into the strategic direction of the product suite.
- Act as the internal advocate for partners and students in all product decisions.
- Build accurate tracking and forecasting of demand, working with academic team to ensure correct levels of examiner availability and operational strategy – accountable for managing demand and supply
- Own the P&L for Assessment, with overall responsibility for tracking revenue vs budget and reporting on activity.
Team Management
- Foster a positive, inclusive, and high-performance team culture
- Set clear expectations and help the team stay focused and accountable
- Encourage continuous feedback, recognition, and excellent communication with remote team members
- Recognise great work and keep team morale high
Commercial Alignment
- Monitor and report on product adoption, usage trends, revenue contribution, and customer growth across academic and corporate segments.
- Collaborate with the OIDI Sales Director to support and shape sales materials, customer engagement, product feedback and delivery.
- Support bid responses and partnership proposals by providing strategic input on product features, roadmap milestones, and value propositions.
- Ensure the sales team is regularly briefed on product enhancements, roadmap updates, and partner-facing benefits to build confidence and performance in market.
Marketing & Financial Responsibility
- Partner closely with the marketing team to ensure go-to-market campaigns, positioning, and messaging align with product capabilities and target customer needs.
- Ensure marketing team are up to date with any potential ‘brand elevation’ partnerships or projects taking place and have clear promotion plan.
- Hold marketing accountable for delivering campaigns that drive qualified leads and engagement in line with budgeted expectations.
- Responsible for ensuring website content and product-related materials are kept accurate and up to date, including key messages, feature descriptions, case studies and customer-facing resources, along with coordination with Academic Director for research-based, data-driven publications.
- Monitor marketing effectiveness and ensure feedback from the market is integrated into product planning along with Technical Development Manager.
- Collaborate with the finance team to ensure accurate tracking of product-related financial performance.
- Support budget planning, forecasting, and reporting by providing product performance insights.
- Ensure product decisions align with broader financial goals, cost management, and sustainable growth strategies.
- Monitor pricing strategy and align product team with insight from the Sales Director, ensure any promotional activity is considered across full spectrum of partners and potential impact.
Reporting, Analytics & Usage Tracking
- Define and maintain key performance indicators (KPIs) related to product usage, engagement, adoption, and retention across educational and corporate sectors. This should include consolidation of customer feedback and influence on technical development.
- Lead on data-informed product planning to identify areas for improvement and inform product roadmap decisions.
- Create and deliver clear, actionable reports to stakeholders across product, marketing, sales, and leadership teams.
- Collaborate with Technical Development Manager to ensure correct tagging of enquiries/actions to inform decisions with greater visibility
- Conduct segmentation analysis across user types (e.g., student vs institution, B2B vs B2C) to inform roadmap prioritisation and feature relevance.
- Use data insights to evaluate the success of new features, and to identify product risks.
Competitor Analysis & Accreditation
- Conduct regular competitor analysis to benchmark product features, pricing, positioning, and innovation trends across the assessment landscape.
- Identify emerging competitors and monitor shifts in strategy or feature development to inform product development.
- Translate competitive insights into actionable recommendations for product enhancements, messaging, or go-to-market alignment.
- Collaborate with sales, marketing, and leadership teams to understand where the product sits in the broader education and corporate landscape.
- Proactively identify opportunities to pursue industry accreditations or endorsements that enhance product credibility and trust.
- Lead or support accreditation efforts by coordinating requirements gathering, documentation, and technical support across relevant teams.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- Undergraduate degree or equivalent professional experience
- Teaching or education qualification (e.g. PGCE, TESOL, CELTA, DELTA) (Desirable)
- Postgraduate degree in Education, Learning Technology, Business, or related field or relevant equivalent experience (Desirable)
- Professional qualification in Product Management (e.g. AIPMM, Pragmatic Institute) (Desirable)
- MBA or leadership/business certification (Desirable)
- Project management certification (e.g. Agile, Prince2, Scrum) (Desirable)
- Assessment-related training (e.g. psychometrics, CEFR alignment, Cambridge Assessment) (Desirable)
Experience and knowledge
- Experience managing remote or hybrid cross-functional teams
- Experience in financial management including budgeting, forecasting, and commercial reporting
- Knowledge of assessment in education (including Higher Education and KS3/4)
- Strong understanding of digital assessment platforms and their impact on learner outcomes
- Experience in B2B/B2B2C education or EdTech markets
- Experience working in a high-pace, results-driven enviroment
- Familiarity with safeguarding, data privacy, and compliance standards in education (e.g. GDPR, FERPA)
- Experience managing global or international teams (Desirable)
- Experience developing or launching alternative assessment models (Desirable)
- Experience working with academic partnerships or regulated frameworks (Desirable)
- Building a digital product globally (Desirable)
- Track record of delivering growth goals (Desirable)
Skills and abilities
- Strategic thinking – ability to define a clear product vision aligned with commercial goals.
- Market Insight – Understanding of customer personas, market trends, and competitor positioning in the education sector.
- Product Sense – Strong intuition for what makes a product valuable, usable, and differentiated, especially in the context of assessments.
- Commercial Acumen – Capable of crafting business cases, pricing models, and growth strategies.
- Communication Skills – Excellent verbal and written communication
- Stakeholder Engagement Able to work with diverse teams and gather input from academic, business, and customer stakeholders.
- Analytical Thinking – Comfortable with interpreting data, feedback, and usage trends to drive decisions.
- Prioritisation – Strong decision-making skills, especially in balancing competing demands with limited resources.
- Project Leadership – Able to manage product initiatives from concept through launch, collaborating with multiple teams along the way.
- User Empathy – Deep sensitivity to the needs of learners, educators, and administrators in online assessment environments.
This job description is provided as a guide to the role. It is not intended to be an exhaustive description of duties and responsibilities and may be subject to periodic revision.
Oxford International is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service. This role involves working with children and is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
Oxford International is an equal opportunity employer. Every applicant and employee has the same opportunities regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status.
