Senior Operational Security & Compliance Manager - 7681

Cambridge University Press & Assessment; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 48,000 - 64,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave

Private medical

Discretionary bonus

Pension plan

Life insurance

Green travel

Job summary

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is seeking a Senior Operational Security and Compliance Manager in Cambridge. The role leads investigations, manages incidents and ensures compliance across our global exam network, protecting the integrity of Cambridge English Qualifications and Teaching exams.

You will drive security policy, oversee malpractice processes, and collaborate with product, regional teams, and Legal to maintain high standards while managing change and peak workloads.

Qualifications

• Experience in security investigations and incident response.
• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail.
• Proven ability to lead and develop a team.

Responsibilities

• Own exam security policies and procedures; handle breaches and major incidents.
• Govern the governance of test security; ensure evidence collection and KPIs/SLAs.
• Design, monitor and report metrics to prevent unfair exam advantages.
• Be an expert in test security and apply knowledge to delivery processes.
• Lead major investigations and incidents; recommend actions to prevent recurrence.
• Collaborate with product, regional teams, Legal and IT on security measures.
• Identify trends in the exam security industry and assess threats/opportunities.
• Maintain Cambridge English policies to ISO9001 standards.
• Oversee candidate malpractice decisions and safeguarding incidents.

Skills

Security investigations

Leadership

Compliance

Risk management

Job description

Job Title: Senior Operational Security and Compliance Manager

Salary: £48,100 - £64,375

Location: Cambridge, UK - Hybrid (at least 2-3 days per week in the office)

Contract: Full-time, Fixed term (until July 2027)

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.

This role plays a key part in protecting the fairness and validity of English assessments, ensuring regulatory compliance and safeguarding Cambridge English's reputation. Around the world, individuals and organised groups may attempt to gain an unfair advantage in exams, creating evolving threats to test security.

As Senior Operational Security & Compliance Manager, you will lead security investigations and responses to incidents that threaten the integrity of Cambridge English Qualifications and Teaching exams, while supporting compliance across our extensive network of exam centres.

We are looking for an experienced and encouraging leader who is innovative, security-conscious and confident managing complexity. If you are looking for an exciting new challenge where you can help protect the validity of our qualifications, this could be the role for you.

About The Role

We are seeking to appoint an experienced, highly organised and dynamic Senior Operational Security and Compliance Manager who will thrive in a changing environment and is motivated by delivering excellent operational security for our exams.

We deliver millions of English language qualifications globally each year and this role is vital to delivering these securely and to our highest standards. Reporting to the Head of Exam Services, you will:

• Own exam security policies and procedures. Take responsibility for handling security breaches, investigations and major incidents.
• Be responsible for the governance of test security; ensuring all evidence is collected and all key KPIs and SLAs are met.
• Design, monitor, and report metrics and measures to prevent unfair advantage in exams, in liaison with Group Security, Product teams, Legal and, where relevant, our IT department.
• Be an expert in test security, and the threats and measures to address it, and apply this knowledge to our test delivery design and processes. This includes threats relating to item leaving and harvesting, pre knowledge, centre collusion and corruption, threats relating to different delivery modes, impersonation/proxies, post exam analyses, and response plans
• Lead and be responsible for major investigations and major incidents, making recommendations and decisions on actions to take to resolve issues, and to ensure changes are made to avoid future re-occurrences.
• Liaise closely with product and regional teams to ensure that the security measures for each are adequate and meet regulatory and recognition requirements
• Identify trends in the exam security industry and look for opportunities and threats. Review competitor activity in this area and identify threats/opportunities for Cambridge English
• Own Cambridge English's policies and procedures relating to test security, ensuring they are updated in accordance with the ISO9001 standard.
• Manage the candidate malpractice process and make decisions regarding the malpractice methodology. Ensure that the malpractice team are delivering decisions regarding candidate results fairly, consistently, and with a modern exam security approach – for example but not limited to, understanding and using the latest psychometric analysis.
• Manage candidate Safeguarding incidents for Cambridge English

About You

The successful candidate will be an expert in security investigations, be highly organised, with great attention to detail, will be a great team player and a supportive line manager.

This team can get very busy at peak times of year, and you will be able to work effectively under pressure and to demanding deadlines and to lead a global team during these peaks. You will motivate, lead and support your team.

You will have experience of managing change, as we are currently implementing changes across the department and you will lead on some of these changes.

Ideally, you will have experience of exam security, the assessment industry or working in a similar environment.

For a detailed job description, please refer to the link at the bottom of the advert on our careers site.

We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme's Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long-term health condition, and who best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable and/or appropriate, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long-term health condition.

Please note that Cambridge University Press & Assessment will not ordinarily be able to provide sponsorship for vacancies of less than 12-months in duration. Applicants must therefore have an existing right to work in the UK to be eligible for this position.

Rewards And Benefits

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:

• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Group personal pension scheme
• Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
• Green travel schemes

If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process due to a disability or a long-term health condition, there will be an opportunity for you to inform us via the online application form. We will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.

Why join us

Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You will belong to a collaborative team that is exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe – for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it is safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.

We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.