"Associate Director (Service Engagement & Strategic Projects)"

About us:

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

King’s Careers & Employability (KC&E) empowers over 40,000 students, researchers, and alumni to succeed after university. As a dynamic, cross-institutional service, we deliver inclusive, innovative, and future-focused support through digital, campus-based, and global initiatives. By integrating employability across the student experience, and collaborating with internal and external partners, KC&E equips our community with the skills, confidence, and connections to shape meaningful futures and make a lasting impact.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

About the role:

The Associate Director (Service Engagement & Strategic Projects) is a key member of KC&E’s senior leadership team, providing strategic oversight of the Service Engagement & Strategic Projects function. This role is instrumental in enabling the success of KC&E and its sibling functions, Careers Education & Faculty Partnerships and Employer Engagement & Work-Based Learning, by leading the infrastructure, support, and initiatives that underpin our collective work. This includes service operations, marketing and communications, digital education, student voice, and strategic programmes.

We are looking for an individual who shares our aspirations and our values, who is comfortable working strategically and operationally, who understands how to deliver support and services to students and other end-users, and who is equipped to work in a high volume, complex and fast-paced environment.

Associate Directors have operational responsibility for a defined portfolio of education and student professional services, as:

• a divisional lead within the Students and Education Directorate;
• the professional services education and students lead within an academic faculty; or
• the lead of defined function-wide transformation initiatives.

The Associate Directors work within and across teams and functions, engaging with a wide-range of colleagues across King’s to drive a positive and transformative impact on the student experience. This includes ensuring:

• that services are delivered efficiently and consistently across King’s;
• the mutual role of service users and those delivering services are understood so that the services deliver value and impact;
• the key measures of service effectiveness reflect the reality on the ground;
• the mutual dependencies of services across and within functions are managed to embed a culture of service, transparency and continuous improvement across King’s.

Associate Directors will have an excellent understanding of the priorities, cultures, and pressures of a research-led university, and of academic processes and the structure of the academic year

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.