About the Role
Change your career, change lives
The OU in Scotland is the largest provider of part-time undergraduate higher education in Scotland, and our open access policy, flexible part-time delivery, national bridging programme with schools, college articulation agreements and geographical reach position us well as Scotland’s national widening access university. 20% of our undergraduate students have qualifications below standard university entrance level when they joined the OU, 26% have a declared disability and 20% are resident in the most deprived areas of Scotland (based on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation).
We are proud to have ranked first in Scotland for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey 2024.
The OU works with Scotland's employers and businesses to provide high quality learning and skills including a range of funding to enable training. 74% of OU students in Scotland are in full-time or part-time employment, and three out of four FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff to take OU courses. In Scotland, 23% of students are living in rural or remote areas and 85% of graduates are remaining in the location where they studied - so their talent and skills benefit local communities.
For further information please visit The Open University.
The role
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join The Open University in Scotland’s Student Recruitment and Support Team, in a senior manager role.
If you are looking for an opportunity to work in an inclusive environment at the heart of student support, can demonstrate the ability to proactively initiate and lead change, alongside excellent line-management and people development, then this is the role for you.
Flexible working
The Open University allows an agile working policy from the first day of employment, in line with statutory regulations. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
Work location
This role is contractually based in the Edinburgh office. Attendance in the office is required (minimum once fortnightly), with both the cost and travel time to do this being the responsibility of the employee and not compensated by the University.
Key Responsibilities
The Senior Manager (Information Advice and Guidance) will be responsible for the management and development of a cross-curriculum team of Educational Advisors (guidance professionals) with specialisms in a range of areas including disability, students in secure environments and under 18s.
You will work as part of the Senior Management Team of the Student Recruitment and Support Scotland team working closely with other specialist support services and teams across the wider University.
You will work particularly closely with another Senior Manager Student Support IAG. Both these roles have individual responsibility for line management of a team of Educational Advisors and cross-service leadership of priority themes. Together they will share responsibility for wider development of the guidance service in Scotland.
You can find further information in the job description.
Skills and Experience
You will:
- have a degree (or equivalent), and a S/NVQ4 in Advice and Guidance or substantial equivalent experience.
- have considerable experience of either providing Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) to students or managing its provision, as well as operational experience of managing teams providing customer/student services to meet recognised standards.
- possess highly developed interpersonal and communication skills, with a proven ability to plan and organise workloads to ensure that objectives are met within resource constraints and have significant experience of leading, managing, training and developing staff within a performance management framework.
- be comfortable working within a large, complex organisation in a UK context and be able to build strong relationships with a diverse range of colleagues whilst ensuring activities are aligned with a range of strategic objectives for OU in Scotland and wider four nations Open University.
Support with your application
If you need support or have any questions or requests for adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process or the role, please contact Scotland-Recruitment@open.ac.uk, quoting the vacancy reference number above. If you would like to discuss the role, please contact Shona Littlejohn at Shona.Littlejohn@open.ac.uk.
