AQA
Assessment Manager
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Assessment Manager
At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen.
Assessment Manager
Permanent
Manchester: £52,800 - £59,000
Guildford: £55,000 - £61,400
Hybrid working – minimum 2 days per week in the office
Own the Standard. Shape the Future.
You know assessment isn’t just about questions and mark schemes. It’s about fairness. Accuracy. Impact. It’s about getting it right—because getting it wrong affects real lives.
If you’ve ever looked at an exam paper and thought, “I could make this better”—this is your chance to prove it.
At AQA, we produce over 2,000 exam papers and assessment materials every year. That’s 10 million individual items sat by hundreds of thousands of students. And behind every one of them is an Assessment Manager making sure it’s valid, reliable, and fair.
What’s in it for you?
There are lots of company benefits, including a fantastic pension (up to 11.5% employer contributions), a 35 hour working week, 25 days annual leave with additional office closure in December and bank holidays on top, the opportunity to join lots of network groups (LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, disAbility, Empowering Women, Wellbeing, Ethnic Diversity and more) an extensive online learning platform, days for volunteering and more.
AQA is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace where everyone—regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, age, disability, sexual orientation, or background—is valued, respected, and supported to thrive
In this role you:
- Will manage a portfolio of specifications, lead the creation and approval of assessment materials, and ensure everything we produce meets the highest standards—regulatory, academic, and ethical.
- Will work with senior associates, regulators, and internal teams to make sure our assessments don’t just meet expectations—they set them.
- You may line manage a small group of Assessment Coordinators.
- You’ll need to be fluent in assessment design, confident with data, and comfortable making decisions that carry weight.
- You’ll need to be a communicator, a collaborator, and a calm presence when things get complex (because they will).
- You’ll also need to care. About quality. About fairness. About doing the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing.
- This isn’t a role for someone who wants to tweak around the edges. It’s for someone who wants to lead from the centre.
Diversity and Inclusion Statement
At AQA, we are committed to fostering a workplace that celebrates diversity and promotes equity and inclusion. We believe that a diverse team brings richer perspectives and drives better outcomes. Our ED&I strategy ensures that everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, age, disability, sexual orientation or background, is valued, respected and empowered to thrive. We actively promote inclusive language, avoid stereotypes and strive for representation across all dimensions of diversity. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and lived experiences.
If you’re ready to take ownership of assessments that shape futures, we want to hear from you.
What’s Next?
Apply now with your most recent CV and a cover letter to explain how your skills and experience match the job description. Applications will close at 23:59 on Sunday 2 August
Interviews will be over two stages: a video interview in the week beginning 13 August followed by shortlisting a face to face interview including a presentation and values and experience based questions in either the Manchester or Guildford office, whichever is closest to you, in the week beginning 24 August
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Full Job Description
Summary
Purpose:
Assessment Managers are the GQ assessment experts within AQA, deploying this knowledge within Assessment and across AQA to meet business needs. They manage a portfolio of specifications and are accountable for the quality of the assessment materials within this portfolio, assuring themselves that the appropriate assessment quality is being complied with at all stages of the assessment cycle, including assessment creation, standardisation, marking, moderation and grading.
They manage a variety of activities in relation to: assessment creation and final approval of assessment materials regulatory compliance of the assessment materials review of quality of marking and moderation assessment reviews and improvements awarding / grade boundary setting. They are involved with the recruitment, deployment, commissioning and management of external associates who create and contribute to our assessment materials. Assessment Managers may also work with a range of external stakeholders such as our regulator, Ofqual, and other exam boards.
Assessment Managers work with many teams across AQA including Associates, Operations, Standards and Awarding, Product Management and Subject Support. Assessment Managers may line manage Assessment Coordinators.
Landscape
Each year over 2000 question papers, assessment artefacts, mark schemes and modified large print papers are created, quality assured and sent to press for domestic and international qualifications by teams across Assessment. These materials are sat by 100,000s of students across three examination series and are pivotal part of their next step in education. The Assessment Management team sits within Assessment and is accountable for the end-to-end quality of all assessment materials from initial planning and creation to marking and awarding of results.
Working with senior associates, they ensure they are error-free, valid, reliable and comply to strict regulatory conditions and implement improvements from robust analytical reviews. The team provide subject-assessment expertise on GQ qualifications to AQA to support work on redevelopment and reform as well as any external regulatory work. They work closely with internal teams across Assessment and COO as well as the wider business to champion assessment quality and best practice.
Assessment Management is split into 7 subject groups; English, Maths, Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts and Technology and Languages. The Assessment Manager role sits within one of these subject areas and reports to the Senior Manager of Assessment working closely with Assessment Coordinator and Subject Assessment Lead roles.
Activities:
- Create and manage the Specification Handbooks, ensuring detailed guidance on assessment design for a subject is clear, including subject specific conventions and regulatory requirements.
- Create and update specification blueprint documentation to capture series specific assessment requirements that enable senior associates to create high-quality assessment materials.
- Quality assure assessment materials to ensure they are valid an in accordance with blueprint documentation and AQA’s universal design and design principles.
- Manage the creation of assessment materials by following the question paper production process, working alongside Assessment Coordinators and Assessment Delivery to ensure the approval and sending to press of assessment materials to time and quality.
- Approve assessment materials for all standard and where applicable, modified large print and/or braille material that require content changes.
- Ensure the materials are fit for purpose, align with the assessment strategy and are error free.
- Not applicable if there is a Subject Assessment Lead for the specification.
- Calculate and review associate authoring fees.
- Monitor and intervene as necessary in standardisation, marking, moderation and marking review activities to ensure quality of assessment is maintained.
- Perform Grade Boundary Officer responsibilities in the awarding process by recommending grade boundaries that ensure comparable outcomes are delivered in line with agreed approach set by the regulator and the Standards and Awarding team.
- Lead the assessment performance review.
- Analyse data and create, with key stakeholders, a shared understanding of strengths and weaknesses of our assessments and recommend and implement improvements where needed.
- Represent Assessment in product performance reviews.
- Recruit, deploy and contract manage (including contract review) selected senior associates, supported by Associate Services as required.
- As necessary, act as point of escalation and input into replies to customer complaints relating to assessment materials.
- Lead the Assessment response into any Ofqual correspondence on assessment materials.
- Share assessment knowledge to support customer facing functions to influence and guide engagement with our customers.
- Contribute to qualification change and development as part of the product strategy, bringing subject-specific assessment expertise and specification knowledge and input into the working group.
- Input into specification and reform activity ensuring assessment best practice is embedded into new specification that meets customer needs and is deliverable.
- Input into series incident management process for any issues arising in assessment materials for their portfolio of specifications.
- Understand and champion good assessment practice across the organisation, with a particular focus on promoting validity in assessments.
- Lead Assessment Management projects or represent Assessment Management on wider AQA projects.
- As necessary, recruit and performance manage a small group of Assessment Coordinators to ensure strong personal performance with high quality outcomes, good cultural fit and personal development.
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To be successful in this role, you will need to:
- Demonstrate good assessment expertise and knowledge of delivery best practice.
- Have a keen interest in assessment knowledge and development.
- Be a good communicator, both in person and in writing, with ability to ensure complex assessment issues are synthesised, understood, shared and managed.
- Be confident in working with, influencing and managing internal and external stakeholders, to manage the delivery of valid and reliable assessments that meet customer needs, quality standards and regulatory requirements.
- Be self-motivated and able to work well on their own and in a team, with a willingness to share ideas and best practice and learn from others.
- Have experience of coordinating activities across
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