Senior Assessment Design & Principles Manager

We're recruiting two Senior Managers in our Assessment Design & Principles team. Each will focus on a different area:

• General Qualification (GQ) Reform - leading a team of assessment design experts to ensure reformed qualifications are valid, fair, reliable and fit for purpose.
• Digital Assessment - leading a team of experts to innovate high-quality, digital assessment design to ensure assessments are meaningful, inclusive and fit for the future.

This role gives you the chance to work at scale and shape something that really matters. The work you do will influence assessments used by future generations of learners. Whether you choose to focus on GQ reform or digital assessment, you’ll be at the centre of significant change. You’ll help define how assessment evolves, making sure it stays inclusive, reliable, valid and relevant while also being practical to deliver. You’ll work with experienced, thoughtful colleagues across multiple teams, including qualification development, product, research and assessment. Your team will look to you for clarity, direction and support. It’s a role where your judgement is valued and your leadership has real impact.

Purpose

You will lead a team responsible for establishing and embedding the principles that underpin high-quality assessment at AQA. That means making sure everything we design, whether paper or digital, is valid, reliable, fair and workable in practice. You’ll be a trusted voice across the organisation, helping others make well-judged decisions, particularly where quality and change intersect. This is a role where your expertise will be relied on, and your leadership will make a visible difference.

What’s in it for you

• a fantastic pension which could see combined contribution of 18.5%
• 35-hour working week
• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 with service) and additional office closure of up to 4 days at Christmas
• private medical insurance with BUPA
• a variety of employee networks (including LGBTQ+, DisAbility, InterFaith, Parents and Carers, Neurodiversity, Empowering Women)
• up to 4 days for volunteering with charities and causes that are important to you

Key responsibilities

• Drive thought leadership and innovation in assessment design to ensure best possible assessment experience for learners
• Lead and develop a team focused on assessment design principles and quality
• Ensure consistent application of assessment design principles across qualifications
• Work with colleagues across the organisation to shape assessment models and approaches
• Act as a senior point of expertise and escalation on assessment design challenges
• Balance quality, pace, feasibility and risk, making pragmatic decisions where needed

The Senior Assessment Design & Principles Manager leads and performance manages a team of Assessment Design & Principles Leads. They are accountable for ensuring Assessment Design & Principles initiatives enhance assessment quality across both new and existing products, ensuring they meet rigorous standards and minimise bias. They act as a central authority on assessment best practice and assessment expertise, fostering organisational knowledge and capability through collaboration with internal stakeholders. They work closely with colleagues across Assessment ensuring excellence in AQA's assessment design and development by championing the principles of validity, reliability, fairness, and manageability. They maintain strong links to other teams in Assessment, Associate Services, Operations, Research and Evaluation, Standards and Awarding, Qualification Development and Product teams. They will use their assessment expertise to feed into wider business work to ensure AQA's assessments are fit-for-purpose and appeal to customers. The role is a point of escalation for any issues that might impact the quality of an assessment design during specification reform, and will represent the Assessment Leadership Team in projects and strategic initiatives around the business to champion assessment quality and best practice.

Landscape

Each year over 2,000 question papers, assessment artefacts, mark schemes and modified large print papers are created, quality assured and sent to press for domestic and international qualifications by teams across Assessment. These materials are sat by 100,000s of students across three examination series and are pivotal part of their next step in education. The Assessment Design & Principles team sits within Assessment and is accountable for leading initiatives and establishing design principles to ensure validity, reliability, fairness, and manageability of AQA General Qualification (GQ) assessments (GCSEs and A levels). The team provide assessment expertise on GQ qualifications to AQA to support work on redevelopment and reform as well as any external regulatory work. They work closely with internal teams across Assessment and EDD as well as the wider business to champion assessment quality and best practice. The Senior Assessment Design & Principles Manager role reports into the Head of Assessment Design & Principles and works closely with Assessment Design & Principles Leads in the team.

Activities (aligned to our AQA values)

• Leadership & management: Lead and manage the allocation of work and change initiatives across Assessment Design & Principles Leads, looking to continuously improve them. Provides regular progress reports and ensures action plans are in place to manage resource effectively.
• Recruitment and performance management: Recruit and performance manage Assessment Design & Principles Leads to ensure strong personal performance with high quality outcomes, good cultural fit and personal development.
• Quality assurance: Quality check the work of Assessment Design & Principles Leads (and Coordinators and Graduates where applicable) to ensure high quality is delivered and feedback provided.
• Strategic activity: Contribute to leadership across the Assessment area and work closely with the Head of Assessment Design & Principles to determine and monitor activity, budget and resources needed, including for strategic activity.
• Governance: Ensure quality of work within and across projects in Assessment Design & Principles, and own and manage the respective risks and issues that occur. Build and foster strong working relationships with colleagues and key stakeholders across Exams Delivery Directorate and the broader business.
• Governance & compliance: Represents Assessment Design & Principles team on governance groups and manages relationships with other stakeholders in monitoring, reporting and ensuring assessment quality. Lead, or input into, Assessment or wider business projects and governance groups. Lead, or input into, AQA's response to regulatory matters, reports or correspondence.
• Drive thought leadership and innovation in assessment design, ensuring the best experiences for the next generation of learners.

If you’re passionate about quality of assessment design and want your work to shape the experience of thousands of learners, this is a role where you can do exactly that.

Qualifications

• Have strong experience in assessment design, delivery, or research, or related areas
• Can apply principles like validity, reliability and fairness in real-world contexts
• Demonstrable evidence-based, research-informed decision-making
• Are confident leading teams and supporting people through change
• Can balance pace and quality, making clear and well-reasoned decisions
• Are comfortable working across both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Have an interest in either qualification reform or digital assessment (or both)
• Communicate clearly, even when dealing with complex or ambiguous issues
• Have in-depth knowledge of inclusive design principles (eg universal design or WCAG accessibility standards for digital assessments) and the ability to translate these into practice.
• Can translate assessment needs into technical specifications (and vice versa)
• Understand broader considerations in assessment and digital assessment (eg, implications of AI) and the impact of these on assessment design.
• Have excellent people leadership skills, effective performance management, talent spotting, creating development opportunities and team engagement.
• Role model organisational leadership habits and values and behaviours. Be able to have robust conversations, own and deliver corporate messages.
• Have a good understanding of the educational landscape, particularly relating to digital assessment, and of the regulatory environment in which AQA operates and likely impact of the regulator on assessment design and qualification reform.
• Have an understanding of good assessment practice and ability to explain this to others.
• Have good understanding of data analysis, including statistical data and the ability to interpret data to inform decision making, and monitor performance and impact.
• Have experience of effective risk and issue management.
• Good interpersonal skills in a variety of situations and communications skills to create and explain a succinct and coherent view of complex issues.
• Demonstrate resilience and calmness under pressure to meet tight deadlines in complex contexts.
• Be confident in working with, influencing and managing internal and external stakeholders, to ensure the design of valid, fair and reliable assessments that meet customer needs and regulatory requirements, including appropriate prioritisation and resource management to achieve that.
• A "results-focused" mindset and the ability to make pragmatic decisions and deliver at pace.
• A "step-up" mindset to use sound judgement when analysing data and taking accountability for actions.
• "Work and learn together" by producing high levels of performance from direct reports and teams by modelling leadership behaviours with confidence and providing clarity, challenge, feedback, coaching and development in line with business objectives.

Note: This description reflects current expectations and responsibilities for the Senior Assessment Design & Principles Manager role.