Most people read a President advert the way they read any senior job. That's the first mistake. A President post in UK higher education can mean chief executive of a university or elected leader of a students' union, and the candidate pack is the only place that tells you which one you're facing.
A live vacancy is sitting on AcademicJobs right now, with applications routed through Saxbam. If you're considering it, you'll want a clearer picture than the posting gives you: what the role actually involves, how the process runs, and where candidates usually lose it.
Check the employer line before you do anything else
Open the full advert and read the employer name first. That one line changes everything. If the employer is the university or college itself, you are applying to run a complex institution, with a lay council to answer to, a balance sheet to defend, and a student population that will judge you in public before you've unpacked your office.
If the employer is a students' union, the role is a different kind of presidency. You'll lead a representative organisation, manage a staff team, preside over democratic structures and spend much of your year in meetings with university management, not as a manager but as a mandated student voice. The salary, tenure and selection route are different. So is the evidence you lead with.
The AcademicJobs listing and the Saxbam portal should agree on the employer. If they don't, treat the candidate pack as the authoritative version.
When the President role is the university's senior leader
Across UK higher education, most institutions call the top job Vice-Chancellor or Principal. President is the formal title at a smaller number of universities, including Manchester and LSE, but the fundamentals are the same. You set the strategic direction, you are accountable for money and people, and you represent the institution to government, funders and local communities.
You are hired by a lay governing body, not by the faculty. That distinction shapes the whole process. A council or board will test whether you can handle a capital programme, a pension deficit, a regulatory inspection from the Office for Students and a hostile select committee appearance in the same month. The academic CV is necessary, but it is not the point.
Most shortlisted candidates can show real strength in two or three of the following. The winner shows all four with recent, specific examples.
- Financial judgment: you'll be accountable for an institutional budget often running into hundreds of millions, long-term borrowing, capital projects and pension liabilities.
- People leadership: your direct reports may include a registrar, provosts, deans, a chief financial officer and a director of communications. You have to lead through them, not around them.
- External influence: you'll sit in front of MPs, funders, regulators and local business leaders. A weak performance in private meetings can end a presidency before it begins.
- Academic credibility: you need enough scholarly standing to command respect in Senate without being so attached to one discipline that you lose the institution-wide view.
When the President role is a students' union leader
A students' union presidency is usually a one-year elected office, often taken as a sabbatical from study or immediately after graduation. In some unions the post is paid; in others it carries a stipend and housing. You need to verify that in the advert before you apply, because it changes the calculation.
The job is still leadership, but the levers are different. You'll chair union meetings, set a campaigning agenda, negotiate with university senior managers, and manage a budget for representation and activities. You'll also be accountable to student members who can recall or remove you in many unions. That public accountability is a feature of the role, not a footnote.
Strong applicants for these posts lead with evidence of recent student representation: a campaign you ran, a committee you chaired, a negotiation with a university service that led to a visible change. Academic honours support you; they do not replace that record.
Before you write the application
Treat whichever role this is as a leadership application, not a CV exercise. The committee or student panel will read a lot of applications; yours has to survive a first ten-minute screen.
- Read the candidate brief twice. Highlight what the institution or union says it needs in the first 90 days, not what you assume from the title.
- Line up three specific achievements that map to those needs. Use numbers wherever possible: budget managed, staff led, campaign delivered, negotiation won, student outcomes improved.
- Find a current or recent council member, trustee, union officer or search consultant you can talk to off the record. One quiet conversation will tell you more than the brief.
- Ask yourself whether the application reads like a chief executive or like a candidate asking for a bigger CV. If there is any doubt, rewrite it.
- Get two people who have hired for a similar senior post, or who have held the office, to read the draft. They will spot hedging and soft claims you'll miss.
The Higher Education Code of Governance from the Committee of University Chairs is useful preparation for institutional roles. It sets out how governing bodies should operate, and it tells you what questions a panel is trying to answer.
Where the strongest candidates stumble
Manchester's 2024 search to replace Nancy Rothwell drew global attention. The university hired Duncan Ivison, a political philosopher who had been deputy vice-chancellor for research at the University of Sydney, after an extensive process that emphasised demonstrable leadership of large, complex faculties, not just research profile.
Cambridge looked outside the institution in 2023 and appointed Deborah Prentice, then provost at Princeton, as Vice-Chancellor. Neither appointment rested on being the best scholar in the room. Both rested on evidence of running something large and politically exposed.
The failures are less visible but consistent. Some candidates treat the governing council or student assembly as a rubber stamp and get exposed in the first interview. Others avoid the financial data, then unravel on a question about cash flow or budget controls. Many more write about what the role can do for their career rather than what they can do for the institution or union in the next year.
Applying through this listing
The public listing routes through Saxbam, with the same vacancy visible on AcademicJobs under its university jobs section. The first practical step is to open the full candidate pack and save the advert ID from the URL; you'll need it if you contact the search firm or upload documents.
Use the full candidate pack on Saxbam and the same President vacancy on AcademicJobs side by side. The AcademicJobs listing will usually carry the same close date and a cleaner summary, while the Saxbam portal is where you'll submit files.
Search committees and student panels both watch how candidates treat the process itself. Our earlier look at attracting senior talent in higher education explains what institutions signal through the advert before a single interview happens.
If you are building a wider shortlist, keep the same discipline: line up the candidate packs, mark deadlines on one calendar, and do not let one long application delay two others.
Your move this week
Do not start with the form. Start with a one-page evidence map. Copy the five bullet points from the candidate brief and write two specific achievements next to each. If you can't do that for at least four of the five, hold off. If you can, open the Saxbam portal and upload before the close date.
The best applicants treat this as a leadership application, not a promotion dossier.