Job Description

Job Title: Advanced Associate, Education Specialist

The Advanced Associate, Education Specialist supports the Assessment Operations team by managing day‑to‑day activities across assessment setup, marking, and materials delivery for high‑stakes exam series. The role involves independent decision‑making within defined processes, acting as an operational subject matter expert to ensure accuracy, quality, and timely delivery while identifying and escalating risks as needed. Key responsibilities span marking operations, examiner management, series setup, and materials management, all aligned with internal, regulatory, and quality standards.

The Advanced Associate, Education Specialist plays a key role within the Assessment Operations team, delivering the day‑to‑day processes required for successful assessment series delivery. The postholder is responsible for managing core operational tasks across set up and marking for a portfolio of qualifications for each high stakes exam series.

The role involves independent decision‑making within defined workflows, identifying risks early and escalating when appropriate. The Advanced Associate acts as the operational subject specialist, ensuring accuracy, consistency and timely delivery across all assessment activities.

Key Accountabilities

Advanced Associate, Education Specialists are responsible for the accurate and efficient delivery of operational tasks across their allocated subjects, ensuring all processes meet internal and regulatory expectations.

Marking Operations

• Participate in daily series closure meetings, providing updates and progressing operational actions.

• Prepare standardisation materials and provide operational support during live meetings, ensuring correct materials and documentation are available.

• Share quality of marking data as required to supervising examiners

• Monitor examiner marking progress, identify emerging risks (e.g. marking progress, quality issues), and take corrective action within remit before escalating where needed.

• Manage allocations across all marking platforms, ensuring balanced distribution and resolving unallocated scripts.

• Conduct operational marking checks contributing to readiness for results sign‑off.

Examiner Management

• Track examiner contracting progress and take proactive steps to maintain capacity.

• Set up and monitor Review of Marking process, including setting up standardisation, managing examiner allocations and monitoring progress against SLAs

• Respond to operational queries from Assessment Associates, ensuring timely and accurate resolution.

• Provide clear, supportive operational guidance to AAs to enable smooth marking and assessment processes.

• Support examiner recruitment activities by organising shortlisting, interviews and candidate communications.

• Manage payment requests and ensure examiner queries relating to payments are progressed appropriately.

• Manage E13 completion processes, following up with examiners and escalating issues where appropriate.

Series Set‑Up

• Draft Requirements Spreadsheets for ePEN set up, and ILMC where required

• Contract senior examiners for sign-off report (SOR) activities

• Manage the SOR approval process with both senior examiners and the assessment management team, as required

• Complete 1st stage of CaST set up for multiple choice questions

Materials Management

• Prepare, format and upload final versions of question papers and mark schemes

• Support creation and updating of materials for training, standardisation and awarding.

• Manage web uploads (exemplars, guidance, assessment materials), liaising with relevant teams to resolve any issues.

• Maintain rigorous version control across all materials, ensuring accuracy, accessibility and alignment with regulatory and quality standards.

What We’re Looking For

Experience

• Completion of a Bachelor’s degree

• 1 to 2 years of background in the education or administrative field

Skills and Attributes

• Proactive and solutions‑focused, taking independent action where appropriate.

• Excellent communication skills.

• Calm, organised and professional under pressure.

• High levels of accuracy and resilience.

• Collaborative and supportive team contributor.

• Commitment to continuous improvement and maintaining high stan