Head of Product

The Head of Product will lead the Education product portfolio, owning the roadmap that delivers the University's digital learning environment. Reporting to the Assistant Director of Product Delivery, they will manage a significant budget and be accountable for student-facing outcomes, digital accessibility compliance, and adoption rates across the student lifecycle.

The portfolio spans the Virtual Learning Environment, student records systems integration, assessment and marks management platforms, and the digital tools that underpin teaching delivery across faculties. The postholder will work directly with academic mschools] and professional services colleagues to ensure products meet both operational needs and the University's strategic objectives.

This role requires proven experience delivering large-scale education technology, with particular strength in accessibility standards, service design for diverse user groups, and managing complex integrations between student-facing and administrative systems.

The successful candidate will be implementing during IT Services' transition to product-led delivery, meaning they will need to maintain product delivery momentum whilst fundamentally changing how their team operates.

• Define and communicate the Product Vision aligned to a defined University Strategic Pillar, working closely with Academic and Professional Services leaders across the University. Create, own and deliver the Product Roadmap and approach to achieve that, Vision.
• Lead, manage and mentor the product management and delivery teams. Set the strategic direction for associated IT Services teams and ensure they have clarity of vision, expected outcomes and deliverables, along with access to resources to achieve their goals.
• Create a clear and trusted relationship between the product team and the wider University to ensure that all products and services meet operational and strategic needs. Act as the central contact and escalation point to the University for the product portfolio, sitting on project, product and governance boards.
• Work with academic departments to ensure education technology adoption supports teaching delivery whilst meeting faculty-specific requirements and academic calendar constraints. Build understanding of discipline-specific needs and translate these into product requirements.
• Establish user experience baselines for student-facing and staff-facing products, with measurable improvement targets. Ensure all products meet agreed accessibility and inclusivity standards, with regular compliance auditing and remediation tracking.
• Work with the wider Infrastructure, Architecture, Development and Test teams to deliver the product roadmap to an accepted and agreed technical standard.
• Establish product governance processes that balance delivery pace with university governance requirements, ensuring Executive Board and relevant governance boards have appropriate visibility of delivery progress, risks, and dependencies.
• Own the product communication strategy and build appropriate senior leadership relationships to ensure delivery progress is appropriately communicated to all relevant stakeholders and the adoption of changes are well received, measured and successful.
• Embed an agile product development approach across the Product Team and University customers. Ensure that measurable value is delivered as quickly as possible to customers and products and services meet the University's needs.
• Be a member of the IT Services Leadership Team that works collectively to achieve strategic aims. Support Executive leaders in the delivery of strategy whilst working in partnership and collaboratively with colleagues to achieve those defined outcomes.
• As a member of staff, you will be encouraged to make ethical decisions in your role, embedding the University sustainability strategy into your working activities wherever possible
• Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post

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