Vacancy: Regulatory and Assessment Quality Lead
| Job title: | Regulatory and Assessment Quality Lead |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £58,000 |
| Location: | Swindon/Hybrid |
| Contract Type: | 6 month fixed-term contract |
BCS has well-established quality assurance and regulatory compliance arrangements as an Ofqual-regulated awarding organisation. We are seeking an experienced regulatory and assessment specialist on a six-month contract to build on these strong foundations as our product portfolio continues to grow.
The role holder will develop quality assurance strategies for each product line, in line with the overarching BCS Quality Assurance Framework. They will bring additional specialist capacity to support the continued build, delivery and maintenance of products in line with the requirements of Ofqual, Skills England and relevant quality standards such as ISO 9001.
Key responsibilities:
- Develop quality assurance strategies for all product lines, building on the BCS Quality Assurance Framework, with clear implementation plans and ownership.
- Review product build, delivery and maintenance processes against Ofqual’s General Conditions of Recognition and Skills England requirements, and recommend opportunities to enhance them further.
- Provide expert input to regulatory strategy for new qualifications, end-point assessments and accreditation submissions in development during the contract period.
- Apply assessment design expertise to support continued high standards of validity, reliability, comparability, manageability and fairness.
- Carry out quality assurance reviews of priority products in build or maintenance.
- Contribute to the ongoing management of the product risk register and lead the incident management approach.
- Provide specialist advice on any incidents, adverse effects or errors arising during the contract, including root cause analysis and corrective actions.
- Brief the Executive Director and relevant teams on regulatory developments, including outputs from Ofqual and Federation of Awarding Bodies forums.
Who are we looking for?
- Degree-level education, or equivalent professional experience in assessment, qualifications or quality management.
- Recognised assessment or quality assurance qualification.
- Postgraduate qualification in educational assessment, education or quality management. (Desirable)
- Membership of a relevant professional body. (Desirable)
- Senior practitioner experience of building and delivering products within an Ofqual-regulated awarding organisation.
- Developing and implementing quality assurance strategies or frameworks across multiple products or product lines
- Designing or reviewing assessments, including end-point assessments, to standards of validity, reliability, comparability, manageability and fairness.
- Managing incidents, adverse effects or errors, including root cause.
- Maintaining risk registers and controlled policy and process documentation in a regulated environment.
- Influencing senior stakeholders and delivering at pace within a fixed-term or interim engagement
- Preparing regulatory submissions, or supporting Ofqual or external audits. (Desirable)
- Implementing or operating within an ISO 9001 quality management system. (Desirable)
- Working within a professional body, or in the IT and digital skills sector. (Desirable)
- Representing an awarding organisation at external regulatory or sector forums. (Desirable)
- Strategic thinking: translating a framework into practical, product-specific quality assurance strategies.
- Analytical skills: reviewing processes and evidence against regulatory requirements and drawing clear, prioritised recommendations.
- Excellent written communication, including concise reports, policies and briefings for executive audiences.
- Confident verbal communication and the credibility to advise and challenge constructively at senior level.
- Collaborative working across product, operations and assessment teams to embed quality by design.
- Planning and prioritisation to deliver defined outputs within a six-month timescale.
- Sound judgement in assessing regulatory risk and deciding when to escalate.
- Knowledge transfer and coaching, so improvements are sustained after the contract ends. (Desirable)
- In-depth working knowledge of Ofqual’s General Conditions of Recognition and associated guidance.
- Apprenticeship end-point assessment requirements, including Skills England’s role and the external quality assurance arrangements.
- Principles of assessment design and evaluation: validity, reliability, comparability, manageability and minimising bias.
- The full product lifecycle in an awarding organisation, from design and development through to delivery, review and withdrawal.
- Current regulatory developments affecting vocational and technical qualifications.
- ISO 9001 quality management principles and requirements. (Desirable)
- Professional registration, certification or accreditation models used by professional bodies. (Desirable)
- Emerging practice in digital and AI-enabled assessment. (Desirable)
- Flexibility to attend the Swindon office.
BCS is dedicated to providing training and development to help all staff realise their potential, and also offer a generous benefit package.
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT are committed to promoting equality at every opportunity as an employer. This statement and our policies are designed to ensure our recruitment and employment practices and procedures actively promote equality of opportunity and value diversity.
All applicants must be eligible to work in the UK upon application.
PLEASE NOTE: This vacancy may be removed before any listed closing date once a sufficient amount of applications have been received.
In the event that we receive a high number of applications for this vacancy, we may be unable to provide an individual response to every candidate, therefore if you haven’t heard back from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful on this occasion.
No recruitment agencies please.
How to apply: Please apply by submitting your CV to careers@bcs.uk along with a cover note answering the following questions:
(a) Your area(s) of expertise & qualifications;
(b) Your experience and suitability for the role
We look forward to hearing from you!
What we offer
- Group Personal Pension Plan
- Hybrid Working
- 27 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays
- Birthday leave
- Paid Christmas office shutdown
- Private Medical Insurance and/or Health Cash Plan
- Life assurance (x4 salary)
- Income protection
- Enhanced maternity/paternity leave
- Free BCS membership
- Reimbursement for professional membership (role dependant)
- Holiday buying scheme
- Financial wellbeing support
- Peer recognition scheme
- Unum Help@Hand (including access to EAP, online GP consultations, wellbeing support, retail discounts and more)
