Customer Propositions Lead

AQA Recruiting; Guildford; On-site; GBP 52,000 - 58,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

High autonomy

Hybrid working

35-hour working week

25 days annual leave

Excellent pension

Private medical insurance

Life assurance

Wellbeing benefits

Job summary

AQA is seeking a Customer Propositions Lead in Guildford/London to own end‑to‑end proposition development across qualifications, services and support. You will work with product, assessment and marketing to define audiences, craft narratives and shape market understanding.

You will influence senior stakeholders, translate complex information into actionable insights, and drive the strategic roadmap with commercial impact. This role offers hybrid work and a significant level of autonomy.

Qualifications

• Experienced in marketing strategy and proposition development.
• Ability to translate insights into clear customer propositions.
• Strong stakeholder influencing and presentation skills.
• Comfortable working with complex information and ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Create clear, compelling customer propositions grounded in market insight.
• Translate complex information into resonant narratives and stories.
• Own the strategic roadmap for qualification areas and influence priorities.
• Collaborate with product, assessment and marketing to bring propositions to life.

Skills

Strategic marketing

Proposition development

Product marketing

Brand planning

Strategy leadership

Job description

Customer Propositions Lead

Permanent Guildford & London £52,000 – £57,500 Hybrid - 2x days a week in the office

Shape how millions experience education

Are you a strategic marketer who loves turning complexity into compelling stories? Do you enjoy owning propositions end‑to‑end and influencing how products are positioned in competitive markets? Are you curious, creative and confident challenging the status quo? This is a rare opportunity to take real ownership of how nationally recognised products are understood, valued and chosen. The opportunity

As a Customer Proposition Lead, you’ll sit at the heart of a growing propositions team, shaping how AQA’s qualifications, services and support are positioned to teachers and schools across England. This role is about impact. Your thinking will influence how educators perceive our offer, how confident they feel choosing it, and how clearly they understand the value we bring to their classrooms and learners. At a time of educational reform and change, your work will help cut through complexity and shape understanding for years to come.

You’ll lead proposition thinking from insight to market — defining what matters most to different audiences, crafting clear narratives, and working closely with product, assessment and marketing teams to bring those propositions to life.

In this role, you’ll be responsible for

• Creating clear, compelling customer propositions grounded in market insight and behavioural understanding
• Translating complex information into ideas and narratives that resonate and stick
• Owning the strategic roadmap for your qualification areas and influencing priorities
• Confidently challenging assumptions and shaping thinking at a senior level
• Collaborating across disciplines to turn strategy into action

What we are looking for

You might come from:

• Strategic marketing or customer propositions
• Product or proposition marketing
• Brand, planning or strategy roles (in‑house or agency‑side) (Desirable experience)
• Understanding of the FE and post‑16 landscape and have experience working in or adjacent to it

What matters most is that you:

• Think strategically but love making ideas tangible
• Are commercially minded and evidence‑led
• Can influence senior stakeholders and “sell” an idea
• Are curious, ambitious and comfortable working with uncertainty
• Enjoy ownership and accountability for your thinking

What’s in it for you?

• High autonomy and visibility in a nationally important organisation
• The chance to shape propositions that influence learning for the next generation
• A 35‑hour working week with flexible, hybrid working
• 25 days’ annual leave (rising to 30), plus Christmas closure days
• Excellent pension (up to 11.5% employer contribution)
• Private medical insurance, life assurance and wellbeing benefits

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.

To be successful in this role, you will need to demonstrate:

• You’re an experienced and confident using a range of techniques and frameworks for marketing strategy and proposition development.
• You’re a strategic thinker, who’s comfortable with creative problem solving and confident in selling your ideas internally to your stakeholders.
• You have the ability to think commercially and make judgements on that basis, voicing your views which sometimes may not be in line with the rest of the team.
• You’re comfortable working at risk, not always having all of the information required at the start of a project.
• You’re an excellent communicator, with the ability to understand and synthesise complex and diverse information and turn it into actionable insights and strategic direction.
• Through your career, you have honed your resilience and welcome your work being constructively challenged and can use your judgement to either stand by your insight or adapt your thinking to new information.
• You’re able to use your judgement to balance risk, opportunity and commercial impact, and communicate this confidently to senior audiences.
• You’re confident making decisions and offering guidance to other teams to help them execute your plans.
• You show curiosity and critical thinking, having an interest in finding out how things work and finding opportunities to innovate and improve.
• You’re confident leading matrix teams and building relationships with senior stakeholders.
• You have proven experience of leading and managing complex projects across multiple business areas.
• You facilitate decision making by simplifying complexity and offering clear, actionable routes forward.
• You’re analytical, and comfortable with numbers, with an understanding of both quantitative and qualitative customer research.

Additional responsibilities and leadership

• As part of the Customer Propositions team in Marketing and Brand team and reporting to the Head Customer Propositions, you will lead matrix teams and projects without direct line management responsibility.
• You’ll work closely with brand and marketing operations colleagues as well as building strong working relationships with multiple teams across Commercial, Product, External affairs and communications.
• You’ll turn business strategies into plans that inform product and service campaigns, brand propositions and provide direction and guidance for all go to market teams.
• You will often work with partial information, forming well‑reasoned recommendations and using your judgement to guide teams confidently.
• This role requires curiosity, critical thinking, and the ability to challenge constructively to ensure we back the strongest opportunities.
• Build clear, insight driven marketing propositions and messaging frameworks, and ensure all strategies align with brand positioning and commercial priorities.
• Define and deliver go to market strategies for products, services, projects and brand initiatives, that influence customer behaviour and strengthen market perception.
• Identify customer and market research requirements to support strategy and proposition developments, work with colleagues to commission research and develop clear and compelling insights from the findings.
• Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across the organisation, using your commercial judgement and market insight to guide conversations, align priorities and gain commitment with go to market activity.
• Ensure customer insights and commercial considerations are embedded from the start of product and support development.
• Develop robust business cases to secure budget and resource, bringing stakeholders along with you.
• Define clear ROI expectations and leading indicators for marketing activity.
• Proactively identify and assess strategic partnership opportunities, including influencers, media, and events, that enhance AQA’s brand and reach in the market to deliver measurable impact.
• Proactively manage the ongoing plans and roadmap for your portfolio of propositions, feeding into wider marketing and brand plans.
• Translate strategy into actionable direction for marketing managers, campaign teams and go to market colleagues, supporting them to deliver the strategy.
• Monitor the effectiveness of go to market strategies through performance tracking, market impact and customer sentiment.

AQA is an independent charity that sets and marks over half of all GCSEs and A-levels in the UK every year. Our purpose is to advance education by helping students and teachers to realise their potential. As part of AQA, you’ll very quickly appreciate the determination and unwavering passion to deliver this goal in everything we do.

We’re operating a smart working model. This allows for our colleagues to work from two days a week in one of our offices across England.

Equality, diversity and inclusion 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.

Conflict of Interest Please note that due to the confidential nature of our work, we are unable to employ people for our temporary roles who are currently a candidate for Key Stage 4 and 5 public examinations.

Safeguarding AQA is committed to the safeguarding of children and adults at risk. We’re dedicated to reducing the risk of employing or contracting any person intent on abusing their position of trust, along with identifying and responding to any incident of alleged abuse from its employees or associates fairly and swiftly. For more information on safeguarding at AQA please visit the AQA website here.

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