Programme Associate
Application Deadline: 10 September 2025
Department: NPQ
Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time
Location: Manchester
Reporting To: Programme Manager
Compensation: £25,155 / year
Description
We are looking for a proactive and detail-oriented individual to join our NPQ (National Professional Qualification) Operations team as a Programme Associate. As an integral role in the NPQ Operations team, you will work closely with the Programme Senior Associate and Programme Manager to support the operations delivery of our NPQ programme provision. This includes supporting NPQ digital and technology operations including declarations, managing our systems and databases, contributing to NPQ assessment operations and processes, and providing wider administrative support. Your work will help us deliver an excellent experience for teachers, school leaders and partners, and you will play an important part in contributing to the overall shaping our impact. If you are highly organised, a clear communicator and keen to make a difference for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, we would love to hear from you. This role offers the chance to collaborate widely, develop your knowledge of programme operations and contribute to our mission.Who are Ambition Institute?
A great teacher changes the future every day. Especially for children who have had a tough start in life, a teacher can be the critical factor in their success.
At Ambition Institute we help schools tackling educational disadvantage to keep getting better and help their teachers and school leaders to become more expert over time.
That’s how we’ll make sure every child gets a great education and the best possible start in life.
- We train teachers and leaders at all levels to get better at the things that make the biggest difference: what you teach, how you teach it, and how you create the conditions for schools to thrive.
- We share what works. Everyone can benefit from evidence of how great teaching and leadership can improve schools and change lives, so we connect people to the latest research and best practice.
- We champion every teacher and school leader’s potential to develop, as the driving force for sustainable school improvement.
We would like you to:
Support NPQ programme delivery and operations activity- Support cross-programme operations activity, including but not limited to our digital and technological provision, assessment activity, programme policy and cross-team programme delivery processes.
- Utilise project plans and work plans to keep track of project progress, milestones, deadlines and risks.
- Support the handling of in-bound queries from both internal stakeholders (e.g., Programme delivery teams and wider divisions/departments) and external stakeholders (e.g., Department for Education), escalating where appropriate in line with agreed escalation policies.
- Support with NPQ technology change by highlighting query trends and user acceptance testing.
- Support the coordination and monitoring of NPQ participant and Delivery Partner data, including submissions of this data to the Department for Education by agreed milestones for funding and contractual purposes.
- Support the production of internal reports relating to participant and Delivery Partner data, in line with organisational governance policies and processes.
- Implement clear, accurate and engaging communications with internal and external assessors,
- Tracking of assessor training, communicating clear expectations of the role and ensuring that assessors complete training by the specified deadlines.
- Support moderation and quality assurance of the assessment process, including data collection, formatting and timetabling.
- Maintain accurate data on shared systems accessible to other teams, including details of assessor qualifications and expertise, etc.
- Assist Programme delivery teams with communications and support plan for participants who have upcoming NPQ assessments, in addition to working collaboratively with the Assessment team to ensure all required NPQ assessment processes and outputs are met.
- The role may be required to support on contract management and reporting e.g., with the Department for Education or individual stakeholder contracts.
- Administrative support to NPQ programme operations and delivery.
- Work collaboratively across the programme faculty on faculty-wide priorities.
Working in a hybrid way, you’ll be attached to either our Birmingham, London or Manchester office and will report to Programme Manager. In line with our current ways of working, you’ll be expected to be in the office at least 1 day a month, in addition to team days and this may be reviewed by Ambition.
Skills, Knowledge and Experience
Essential- Excellent organisation, planning and prioritisation skills with excellent attention to detail.
- Excellent communication skills (written and oral), both externally and internally, and experience of using these to support the delivery of programmes/projects and/or programme operations.
- Ability to work independently and use own initiative to respond positively to change and/or to challenging situations with a desire to seek solutions and make improvements.
- Strong team player with the ability to seek advice and/or input from across different teams where required.
- Good analytical skills, with the ability to interrogate data and identify trends.
- Good understanding of what makes a positive customer/stakeholder experience
- Good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
- Experience in using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems including Salesforce.
What’s in it for you….?
- Competitive annual salary
- Professional development for all staff
- 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays and 'winter shut down’ at the end of December/beginning of January
- Employer pension contribution of 11%
- Agile, hybrid working culture, so you can manage when and where you work
- Staff affinity networks that help keep equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work
- Blind recruitment process to ensure equality and fairness in our hiring
- Enhanced maternity pay after a year’s service
- Shared parental leave package
- Access to free, confidential 24/7 wellbeing and support line
- Comfortable and collaborative workspaces in the city centres of Manchester, Birmingham and London
- Work-from-home technology package to support hybrid working
- Interest free season ticket / bike loans
- You care deeply about educational disadvantage and being part of an organisation that challenges inequality
- You have a good work ethic and strive to make a difference in the job you do
- You always give maximum effort to understand and meet the needs of our partners and participants
- You always have a great attitude so we “can do” for all our colleagues, partners and participants
- You are open to feedback and learning because we want to keep getting better
- You work with your initiative to bring new ideas and a fresh perspective
- You are well organised and can prioritise work that will have the greatest impact
- You want a career with a person-centred organisation with a cause at its heart.
- You have a collaborative work ethos, bring warmth and good humour to work and constructive outlook to every situation
- You enjoy working in a fast-moving workplace, with a great support structure around you
- You would like to grow with an ambitious organisation as it progresses over time
- Want flexibility in how you work – splitting your time between one of our offices and remote working and managing your own working patterns to get the job done.
Applications will be accepted for all office locations.
All applications must be received by the closing date 11:59pm on 10 September 2025. Interviews are expected to take place w/c 15 September 2025
We recognise that AI function tools (such as ChatGPT or other generative AI tools) are here to stay and can be helpful for applications including to assist in researching for application responses and to shorten your first draft. However, we are observing a growing trend in the use of AI, and we would caution applicants against relying too heavily on such tools when drafting responses.
The pitfall of such tools is that they produce generic responses that don’t showcase individuality, specific experiences or real-life examples. This usually results in applications being unsuccessful. We want to evaluate your response, and we will be looking for answers that use examples and experiences that are clearly specific to you. You are more likely to successfully demonstrate your soft skills like communication and teamwork when preparing answers to application questions yourself and this helps mitigate the unintended consequences of AI-generated responses.
If we suspect you have used AI inappropriately, the panel reviewing your application may adjust how your response is rated. For more details of what we consider to be acceptable use of AI function tools in our application process, please review our FAQs on our careers page.
We are committed to the safeguarding of children and the most vulnerable in our society and, as such, we are unable to employ individuals with relevant convictions, including the following: a conviction for an offence involving violence or dishonesty, of a sexual nature or against minors, or for any other offence that is relevant to the nature of the services provided by our organisation.
For any questions or queries please review our FAQs | Ambition Institute Careers (pinpointhq.com) in the first instance. If we've not addressed your question in this section, please email us at jobs@ambition.org.uk
As an employer, we have a responsibility to prevent illegal working in the UK by ensuring that our employees have the right to work in the UK. Therefore, as part of the recruitment process to verify your eligibility you will be required to produce relevant documentation.