Planning and Process Co-ordinator in Manchester

At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen.

Job title: Planning and Process Co-ordinator

Contract type: Permanent

Location: Manchester

Salary: £26,000 - £29,000

Working arrangements: Hybrid, with a minimum of 2 days per week in the office

Help shape efficient processes that keep our teams organised, compliant and focused on delivering for customers. If you're someone who enjoys bringing order to complexity, improving the way things work and keeping important processes running smoothly, this could be the perfect opportunity for you. You’ll play a key role in supporting the Planning Manager by coordinating administration, maintaining compliance processes and helping teams work effectively across a range of activities. Your work will directly support the delivery of Subject Support’s services, ensuring activities are organised, documented and compliant. Because priorities and processes can evolve, you’ll need to be adaptable and comfortable responding to change. You’ll influence how teams work, supporting smarter processes, stronger stakeholder engagement and seamless operational delivery across the function.

Purpose of the role

As Planning and Process Co-ordinator, you’ll help ensure that key operational activities are delivered accurately, efficiently and in line with internal policies and regulatory requirements. You’ll be the person to provide vital coordination across administration, associate management, planning and compliance activities, helping to keep records accurate, payments processed, documentation organised and stakeholders informed. As priorities, policies and regulatory requirements evolve, you’ll need to be adaptable and comfortable managing change while maintaining accuracy and attention to detail.

Key responsibilities

• Processing associate payments, supporting budget administration, updating logs and maintaining accurate records.
• Creating, organising and maintaining important documents, files and audit evidence to ensure compliance and easy access to information.
• Supporting onboarding activities, maintaining mailing lists and helping manage Microsoft Teams spaces and communications.
• Building effective relationships with associates and internal stakeholders, responding to queries and ensuring information is shared clearly and efficiently.
• Documenting, mapping and improving processes, helping teams adopt new ways of working and ensuring procedures remain up to date.
• Monitoring compliance activities, maintaining records and supporting regulatory requirements such as associate administration and related checks.
• Coordinating planning and operational activities, helping to keep projects, engagement plans and key deliverables on track.

What you’ll bring

• Experience supporting complex operational or business planning activities, effectively coordinating multiple workstreams and delivering results in a fast-paced environment.
• The ability to manage documents, records, data and financial administration with a high level of attention to detail.
• The confidence to document, review and improve processes, identifying opportunities to make ways of working more effective.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and the ability to build productive working relationships across multiple teams at all levels.
• Excellent organisational and workload management skills, with the ability to adapt to changing priorities, balance competing demands and support the successful delivery of business objectives.
• Proficient in using Microsoft 365, including Teams, with experience of event management systems such as Microsoft Dynamics, iTrent and related platforms, and the ability to use technology effectively to manage, track and report on activity.

What’s in it for you

A platform to influence education nationally and represent AQA at key events

Career development and professional growth in a leading education charity

Hybrid working and flexibility to support work-life balance

• Comprehensive benefits including Bupa Health Insurance, Health Care Cash Plan, Life Assurance and an Electric Vehicle Leasing scheme, generous, combined pension contributions up to 18.5% and 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays and extra closure days at Christmas
• An inclusive culture that welcomes new perspectives, values collaboration and encourages innovative thinking to improve how we support teachers and students

Diversity and inclusion

At AQA, we're committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels they belong and can do their best work. We value the different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds our people bring, knowing they strengthen our culture, decision-making and impact. We foster an inclusive environment where everyone is treated with respect, has access to opportunities to grow and contribute, and feels able to be themselves.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and lived experiences.

Smart Working

We’re operating a smart working model. This allows for our colleagues to work from two days a week in one of our offices across England.

Conflict of Interest

Please note that due to the confidential nature of our work, we are unable to employ people for our temporary roles who are currently a candidate for Key Stage 4 and 5 public examinations.

Safeguarding

AQA is committed to the safeguarding of children and adults at risk. We’re dedicated to reducing the risk of employing or contracting any person intent on abusing their position of trust, along with identifying and responding to any incident of alleged abuse from its employees or associates fairly and swiftly. For more information on safeguarding at AQA please visit the AQA website here.

Full Job Description Summary

Purpose: To ensure Subject Support’s activities are delivered in a compliant, efficient, and well-documented manner. This role safeguards regulatory adherence, supports associate management, and maintains robust administrative processes. Landscape: Subject Support is one of five functions within the Commercial business area. Subject Support and Sales work in partnership to support, understand, retain and grow our customers. Subject Support provide subject expertise focussed on customer retention, whilst Sales focus on acquisition, working collaboratively to deepen our relationships with customers, future customers and stakeholders. It’s vital that all the activities carried out by subject support are compliant with internal and external policy and regulatory requirements and plans and processes are documented. This role would report into the Planning Manager.

Key Activities

Compliance & Regulatory Coordination

• Provide support for recruitment and associate appointments ensuring compliance with associate contracting and payment policy, process and regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate and approve associate payments, ensuring correct coding, prompt processing, and query handling.
• Monitor compliance with internal policies and regulatory requirements e.g. Oversee DBS checks and Personal Interest declarations to ensure regulatory compliance.

Planning and Process Support

• Monitor CRM master queue for query triage and routing of customer queries.
• Support campaign delivery for customer retention and acquisition. E.g. Maintain and update the calendar of engagement activities.
• Assist in monitoring delivery customer engagement plans under the planning manager’s guidance.
• Support planning manager with creation and co-ordinate thematic plans including, overarching annual plans, stakeholder plans, team development plans and budget plans.
• Document and maintain processes for new ways of working with customer and stakeholders.

To be successful in this role, you will need to demonstrate:

• Planning, organisation & workload management.
• Able to help plan and schedule activities, keeping records up to date.
• Good prioritisation skills and able to manage a busy inbox and competing tasks.
• Able to organise online meetings/training sessions (sending invites, joining calls, taking notes and sharing actions).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (email, phone and MS Teams).
• Have confidence to facilitate live training, either face to face or via MS Teams.
• Good stakeholder management & relationship building (working effectively with schools, associates, Sales, and internal teams).
• Good customer service skills when responding to queries from schools, internal stakeholders and associates.
• Strong administration skills, including accurate data entry and document handling.
• Good attention to detail to ensure records, allocations and communications are accurate.
• Able to support basic financial administration (e.g., checking information, processing fees/expenses) and produce simple reports when needed.
• Able to follow agreed processes and policies (including regulatory requirements) and look for opportunities to improve existing processes.
• Able to spot issues early (e.g., missing information, scheduling clashes, data and budget discrepancies) and raise them with the right person so they can be resolved.
• Able to handle confidential information appropriately and follow information security procedures.
• Confident using IT systems and able to learn new tools with support.
• Use (or learn to use) systems such as: Microsoft Dynamics Microsoft Office suite ITrent Events management systems.
• We are committed to building an inclusive, diverse workforce, engaging with and supporting staff from under-represented groups.

Additional Information

AQA is an independent charity that sets and marks over half of all GCSEs and A-levels in the UK every year. Our purpose is to advance education by helping students and teachers to realise their potential. As part of AQA, you’ll very quickly appreciate the determination and unwavering passion to deliver this goal in everything we do. To help drive these ambitions, AQA invests in the development of its people by offering a range of professional development and learning opportunities leading to over 50% of our permanent roles being filled internally.