UCAS is at the heart of connecting people to higher education.

UCAS is the world’s leading shared admissions service for higher education. We provide application services for UK universities and colleges as well as delivering a wide range of research, consultancy and advisory services to schools, colleges, careers services, professional bodies and employers.

We’re a successful and fast-growing organisation, which helps hundreds of thousands of people every year. We're committed to delivering a first-class service to all of our customers — they're at the heart of everything we do.

Digital Delivery

The Digital Delivery business unit runs UCAS’ day-to-day frontline services, digital products and technical infrastructure for all customers, including applicants and providers. The unit is also responsible for developing and improving customer-centric products in close collaboration with UCAS’ product function.

Services to customers include the Customer Experience Centre, providing comprehensive high quality services to support applicants in their journey into university and other higher education provision. Digital Delivery is responsible for running UCAS’ Confirmation and Clearing service, and logistics related to key deadlines in the cycle.

Working in cross-company multi-disciplinary teams comprising customer insight, product managers, architects, developers, testers, and data scientists, the Digital Delivery business unit ensures that UCAS is a customer-centric, product-focused digital business, connecting students with their next opportunity.

The Digital Academy lead will be working with Digital leaders across the organisation to develop, design and deliver creative development interventions and strategies to enable us to attract, embed, develop, and retain the best people.  

They will define, develop, and lead our bespoke in-house Digital Academy to equip our people with the technical skills needed to accelerate digital transformation and delivery.

This will include working directly with Software Engineers, Test Engineers and Technical Architects on a 1-2-1 basis to support them on their personal learning pathways as well as supporting the wider talent and development agenda.

• Design, implement and launch a bespoke development and training academy that aligns to UCAS’ Digital Strategy, delivery ambitions and technical training needs.

• Research and make recommendations for technical training and development platforms and partners.

• Partner with engineering and technical leads, Talent Development, HR Business Partners, Talent Acquisition, and the Technical Resource Manager to identify future skills gaps and current development needs.

• Consult with subject matter experts to publish and maintain course content, training curriculums and learning pathways which complement, and support UCAS’ defined technical career pathways.

for further information about the accountabilities of this role please see the attached job profile.

• Extensive experience in the design and delivery of development programmes – ability to identify development needs, visualise, and architect appropriate solutions and write new training material from scratch when required.

• Experienced in the delivery of face-to-face and hybrid training – a confident and engaging presenter and facilitator.

• Experience in commissioning, liaising and monitoring external training provision.

• Strong coaching and mentoring ability.

• Ability to balance an innovative and creative approach to digital talent management with analytics/data.

• A passion for people development and continuous improvement, specifically with technical/engineering teams.

• Ability to build positive and productive collaborative relationships with key stakeholders and business partners

• Experience working with and developing remote teams.

• A background in Technology is desirable, alongside experience or certification in AWS, Agile, SAFE, Cloud computing and software engineering experience.

• Confident communicator and influencer, both verbally and written.

• Excellent planning and organisational skills.

• Highly proficient/demonstrating advanced IT capability using Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Outlook.

• Adept at thinking on your feet, using your initiative, and making decisions.

• Resilient, flexible, and able to work under pressure when required.

for further information about the skills and experience required of this role please see the attached job profile.

Salary - up to £47000 

• 30(!)days annual leave, pro rata (plus 3 concessionary days over Christmas and your bank holidays!)

• Flexibility – UCAS positively supports Hybrid working for its employees, meaning you can work between home and the office in a way that suits you and the business and also has a comprehensive Flexible Working Policy

• A generous pension scheme

• Hundreds of high street discounts and offers with Perkbox

• Internal training and development

• Subsidised gym and café

• Be rewarded for going above and beyond with our ex-gratia bonus scheme and Celebrating U, our quarterly employee recognition scheme