Responsibilities included delivering and managing implementation of the university’s academic strategies to supports its mission to be the university for Birmingham. Working with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and PVC (Education), I held responsibility for managing stakeholders, engaging strategically with partners, and contributing to the improvement of university policies and processes to ensure positive outcomes for all students.

• Developed and delivered OfS’s first skills strategy along with a range of activities supporting higher education’s delivery of skills needed for business and public services• Led OfS engagement with multiple government departments and agencies to influence and respond strategically and flexibly to government policy and initiatives, including setting up emergency register to enable student nurses and medics to enter NHS at the start of the pandemic• Worked across OfS to influence and respond to strategic developments, monitoring progress and influencing direction of travel and subsequent projects of strategic significance

Worked with Directors to develop our skills and employability portfolio of work, responding to Industrial Strategy priorities and making clear the contribution students make to broader economic growth in order to rationalise interventions to support improved employability of graduates. Work involved developing and leading a programme to align student choice with employer demand in order to address protracted skills gaps and provide evidence to Treasury that demonstrated HE's contribution to economic growth and OfS's ability to ensure successful outcomes for all graduates. Included work to amend measurements and definitions of knowledge exchange activities in order to better recognise the extent to which students are beneficiaries of and conduits for knowledge exchange, informing OfS's ability to account for the Department of Education's £47 million Higher Education Innovation Fund investment.Role required liasing with government departments, steering boards, stakeholders and other public agencies on issues related to skills vacancies, skills pipelines, subject-specific employment issues, and co-regulatory tensions to inform evaluation of current policy and development of future initiatives.

Supported the Head of Skills and Director to: develop OfS strategies on skills and graduate employability; identify skills needs across the HE sector; determine the impacts of Spending Review decisions on our policies and strategies; contribute to the policy debate on HE’s contribution to skills and Productivity; develop strategies for supporting the sector to develop and deliver degree apprenticeships; and provide credible advice and guidance to Government on graduate employability, skills and other related initiatives. Held team and line management responsibility for colleagues working on graduate employability; Q-Step; degree apprenticeships; quality assurance of higher-level apprenticeships; Institute of Coding; Institutes of Technology; technical education reforms; Engineering conversion course pilots and various consultancy contracts.

Responsible for liasing with government and key stakeholders around development of degree apprenticeships, National Colleges, accreditation reviews, strategic subject areas, skills agenda and graduate employability broadly. Support Head of Skills to develop HEFCE's strategic skills agenda, provide consultation responses and Select Committee submissions, and submit evidence to government stakeholders in order to influence policy. Responsible for team management and resourcing, for team work programme development, and line management of 4 colleagues. Currently overseeing the following work programmes: Q-Step, Engineering Conversion Course pilots, the Degree Apprenticeship Development Fund, the Institute of Coding initiative and follow-on work from the STEM accreditation reviews.

Led on development of postgraduate policy, specifically postgraduate funding. Project manager for Postgraduate Support Scheme 2014-15 pilot programme and PSS 2015-16 designed to deliver £10,000 awards to under-represented masters students. Stakeholder manager for UK Council for Graduate Education. Responsible for internal and external policy briefings and presentations, including evidence submissions to government. Main point of contact for postgraduate issues for other sector organisations including UUK, QAA, OFFA, and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Designed and led seminars for undergraduate Sociology courses; responsible for weekly teaching, assessment of coursework and exams, and coordinating support tutorials for students to improve analytical reading and writing skills.

Co-authored occasional paper to Home Office based on collaborative analysis of marriage migration into UK as part of Bristol-Oxford team. Analysed large sets of migration statistics as well as background literature, narratives and policy documents.

Managed communications between authors, reviewers, editors and publisher for peer-reviewed academic journal. Solicited and accepted manuscripts; revised documentation to improve tracking system throughout review process; provided guidance to peer reviewers; led communications to inform authors of decisions following review.

Collaborated with Communications Officer to write and publish regular newsletters, distilling policy and research documents into plain language for dissemination across member organisations located in 26 EU member states. Managed content for website.