UK Management College
Dean of Student Experience
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Dean of Student Experience
Job Responsibilities
The College
UK Management College (UKMC) is a private, widening-participation higher education provider established in 2016, delivering degree programmes with an integrated Foundation Year in partnership with universities that act as the awarding bodies — the University of Wolverhampton (principal partner), Canterbury Christ Church University, Arts University Bournemouth and Health Sciences University — across campuses in Manchester (College House, Salford and Abarna Campus), Derby, Newcastle (North Shields) and Sunderland. The College serves a predominantly mature, local and first-in-family student community, many of whom balance study with work, caring and financial pressures. Its student-support model is therefore central, not peripheral, to its mission: success is measured by retention, continuation, completion and progression, and the College’s support ecosystem — organised around quality, engagement, support, wellbeing, inclusion and employability — exists to deliver those outcomes for every student, at every campus, on equal terms.
Role Purpose
The Dean of Student Experience is the College’s senior leader for academic services and the student experience. The post holder holds executive responsibility for the departments and functions that surround and enable course delivery: the Wellbeing Department; the Personal Academic Tutor (PAT) team; student engagement (non-academic); academic language and learning; employability, careers and student outcomes; research and knowledge exchange; and academic integrity. The purpose of the role is to ensure that every student — whatever their starting point, campus or mode of engagement — receives consistent, differentiated and effective support to engage, persist, achieve and progress.
The Dean of Student Experience reports to the Associate Provost / Provost and works in close partnership with the Academic Dean, who leads course delivery, and with the Quality and Compliance department, with whom the post holder shares responsibility for evidencing that the College’s support for students meets the requirements of the Office for Students (OfS), partner universities (awarding bodies) and other regulatory bodies. The two Deans are jointly accountable for the College’s student outcomes: continuation, completion and progression at or above the College’s institutional targets, which are themselves set above OfS numerical baselines.
Reporting and Organisational Position
Reports to: Associate Provost / Provost.
Line manages: Head of Wellbeing; Personal Academic Tutor (PAT) Manager; Head of Student Engagement (Non-Academic); Academic Language and Learning Lead; Head of Employability and Student Outcomes (Student Engagement and Career Development); Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange; and Head of Academic Integrity — together with the teams that report through them at every campus.
Works with: The Academic Dean and the academic delivery structure (Associate / Assistant Deans, Course Directors, Academic Heads of Campus, Module Leaders); the Head of Quality and Compliance; the Academic Registrar and Academic Services; the Head of Planning and Student Systems; the Designated Safeguarding Lead; the Head of Human Resources; partner universities (awarding bodies); and the Student Association.
Committees: Senior oversight of the Student Experience, Engagement and Employability Committee, the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the Research, Ethics and Knowledge Exchange Sub-Committee; member of Academic Board and the Faculty Committee; represents the student-experience portfolio at the Executive Board as required.
Key Responsibilities
A. Strategic Leadership of the Student Experience
- Provide institution-wide leadership for the student experience and academic services, ensuring a single coherent support ecosystem across all campuses in which every service is oriented to the College’s outcome measures: retention, continuation, completion and progression.
- Lead, develop and performance-manage the Heads of Department and functional leads within the portfolio: agree annual objectives and departmental plans, hold regular documented one-to-ones, conduct appraisals, and hold each department to account for its performance, compliance and student outcomes.
- Ensure support is differentiated according to need but never unequal — with proactive, tailored support for at-risk students, stretch for high performers, and flexible arrangements for carers, mature learners and disabled students — in line with the College’s equity principle and Access and Participation commitments.
- Ensure parity of the student experience across every campus, monitoring service coverage, caseloads and student feedback by site and addressing any campus-level variation.
- Advise the Associate Provost / Provost, the Executive Board and the Board of Directors on student-experience performance, capacity and risk, ensuring service capacity is planned ahead of student-number growth, never behind it.
- Deputise for the Provost on student-experience matters as required.
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B. Wellbeing, Safeguarding and Inclusion
- Provide senior oversight of the Wellbeing Department through the Head of Wellbeing: endorse its strategy, policies and Office Performance Plan; review its KPI dashboards, audit findings and risk reports; and escalate material risks to the Associate Provost / Provost and senior committees.
- Ensure the consistent implementation of reasonable adjustments and learning support plans across all campuses, working with the Academic Dean’s delivery structure so that adjustments are embedded in teaching and assessment, in compliance with the Equality Act 2010.
- Ensure effective arrangements for safeguarding and Prevent within the portfolio, working with the Designated Safeguarding Lead and the Safeguarding and Prevent Committee, and provide senior leadership during escalated crises and critical incidents.
- Champion equality, diversity and inclusion across the student experience, providing senior oversight of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee’s student-facing agenda and ensuring inclusive practice is embedded in every service.
- Ensure lessons from wellbeing-related complaints, appeals and serious cases are learned, recorded and fed into continuous improvement.
C. Personal Academic Tutoring (PAT)
- Provide senior oversight of the Personal Academic Tutor model through the PAT Manager, ensuring every student is assigned a Personal Academic Tutor and receives differentiated academic, pastoral and practical support in line with the Personal Tutor Policy.
- Ensure PATs monitor engagement, attendance and confidence through the engagement dashboard and KPI risk matrix, act on early warning signs of disengagement, and lead timely interventions in partnership with the Wellbeing Team, module tutors and Course Directors.
- Ensure the PAT function delivers its academic-skills programme — induction, workshops on academic writing, referencing, time management and digital literacy — consistently across campuses, aligned with the Foundation Year Academic Skills provision.
- Oversee PAT workforce planning, caseload allocation and cross-campus consistency, ensuring the data-driven deployment model matches PAT resource to enrolment, risk and learner need.
- Champion PAT staff development, supporting progression towards the PGCert and Advance HE Fellowship in line with institutional targets, and evaluate PAT performance and impact against retention, engagement and student-satisfaction measures.
D. Student Engagement, Belonging and Student Voice
- Provide senior oversight of the non-academic engagement function through the Head of Student Engagement (Non-Academic), ensuring a rich programme of activities, events and communities that build belonging at every campus.
- Ensure the Student Engagement, Belonging and Academic Challenge Framework is delivered and monitored, with engagement and belonging metrics reviewed termly and acted upon.
- Ensure the student voice is heard and answered: support the Student Association, student representation, the Student Staff Liaison Committee, surveys and mid-module feedback, with visible “you said, we did” responses across the College.
- Ensure induction and transition support helps every new student — including Foundation Year entrants — settle, connect and engage from the earliest weeks.
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E. Academic Language and Learning
- Provide senior oversight of the Academic Language and Learning Lead and the developing Academic Language and Learning Hub, ensuring effective language and study-skills support for all students, including those for whom English is not a first language.
- Ensure the English Proficiency Framework is implemented and monitored across all courses and campuses, with escalation routes from Course Directors and PATs into specialist language support.
- Ensure language and learning development is embedded in the curriculum in collaboration with the Academic Dean, the Head of Learning and Teaching and Course Directors, and that its impact on retention, attainment and progression is evaluated.
F. Employability, Careers and Student Outcomes
- Provide senior oversight of the employability and careers function through the Head of Employability and Student Outcomes, ensuring the Career-Ready Framework is delivered across every programme and campus.
- Lead the development of the Centre for Employability, Skills and Alumni, connecting teaching, research and graduate outcomes, and building employer, community and alumni engagement.
- Hold portfolio accountability for graduate progression, sustaining performance at or above the College’s institutional target, which is set above the OfS numerical baseline, and ensuring progression outcomes are monitored by campus and programme.
- Ensure employability, placements and career development are embedded at course level in collaboration with Course Directors, and provide senior oversight of the Student Experience, Engagement and Employability Committee.
G. Research and Knowledge Exchange
- Provide senior oversight of the Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange, fostering a research and scholarship culture among staff and ensuring research-informed teaching enriches the student experience.
- Provide senior oversight of the Research, Ethics and Knowledge Exchange Sub-Committee, ensuring rigorous research-ethics approval processes and monitoring research performance against internal and external indicators.
- Lead the College’s preparations for the Research Excellence Framework 2029 and its community-centred scholarship agenda, aligned with the research and knowledge-exchange sub-strategy and budget.
H. Academic Integrity
- Provide senior oversight of the Academic Integrity Office through the Head of Academic Integrity, ensuring academic-misconduct prevention, education, investigation and case management operate consistently, fairly and in line with each awarding body’s regulations.
- Ensure integrity data is analysed and reported termly, that trends inform preventative education delivered through PATs and module teams, and that assessment-design implications are raised with the Academic Dean.
- Ensure students receive clear education on academic integrity, referencing and the responsible use of technology from induction onwards.
I. Quality, Compliance and Regulatory Assurance
- Work in structured partnership with the Head of Quality and Compliance to ensure the student
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