Office for Students

About the OfS We are the independent regulator of higher education in England. Our primary aim is to ensure that English higher education is delivering positive outcomes for students - past, present, and future. Our regulation sets minimum requirements for the quality of English higher education. Our requirements allow us to ensure that providers applying for registration or degree awarding powers uphold the sector's reputation for high quality courses and align with sector-recognised standards. They also enable us to intervene where higher education courses fall below our expectations and help us to ensure that all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have meaningful choices of high-quality courses and are effectively supported to succeed. The role We are seeking experienced academics from a wide range of higher education providers to help us to assess the quality and standards of higher education providers. In this recruitment round, we are particularly interested in hearing from applicants who; are interested in becoming a lead assessor. Lead assessors have a key role in leading our assessment teams and preparing the assessment report. Full details are provided in the person specification Or have experience that is particularly relevant for degree awarding power assessments such as: academic governance experience; substantial external examiner or validation experience; or teaching and learning committee experience. We are particularly interested in candidates who have senior leadership experience in those roles and have led on the design and management of academic governance have experience of delivering higher education in further education providers, or smaller providers. A full role description is available here You will join our pool of expert academic assessors. For each assessment of a HE provider, we will select assessors from the pool, based on their specific skills, experience, subject expertise, availability, and the nature of the assessment. When an assessor takes part in an assessment, they are appointed to a committee of the OfS board. Appointment to the committee will be for several months depending on the assessment. You will work in a small team, using your expert academic judgement to assess whether, for example, courses provide educational challenge and are effectively delivered. This is an exciting opportunity to play an integral role in driving up the quality of higher education across the sector and to safeguard the reputation of English higher education. There is more information on our quality assessments and our assessors here. About you You will be an experienced academic, with experience in designing and delivering learning, teaching and assessment in higher education. You will be able to use your expertise, both subject specific expertise and broader pedagogical expertise, to reach academic judgements about the quality of higher education in a range of different contexts. You will be currently or recently employed by a higher education provider as academic staff. You may have experience of working with new high-quality institutions that are seeking to do things differently. For assessments of providers seeking their own degree awarding powers, it would be helpful if you have experience in a senior academic leadership post with responsibility for the design and operation of effective academic governance arrangements. You will be able to contribute to designing the scope of an assessment, identifying questions and themes for exploration through meetings with staff and students, and by scrutiny of documentary evidence such as course documents, assessments, policy and procedures and other written material. You will also have excellent drafting skills to produce clear, well-structured and robust assessment reports. You will have the ability to describe and analyse complex evidence, clearly set out the judgements you have reached about that evidence, and the reasons for your conclusions. Lead assessors will have the ability to provide strong leadership of an assessment team, drawing appropriately on the skills and experience of the assessors in the team, resulting in the team reaching robust and well-reasoned academic judgements. Remuneration For each assessment undertaken in 2025-26, assessors and lead assessors will be paid a flat fee for each assessment, calculated by reference to a day rate of £480 for lead assessors and £430 for assessors. The anticipated time commitment for each assessment in 2025-26 is 10 to 30 days across 6 - 12 months depending on the type of assessment, with 2 to 3 additional days for lead assessors for preparation of the assessment report. Working with us The OfS regulates the higher education sector on behalf of all students. We value diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do. We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic background. Application process Closing date for applications is 11.55pm Tuesday 6th January 2026. Applicants who are shortlisted for this round will be invited to participate in online assessment centres on 11th or 12th February 2026. Successful applicants will be assigned to our pool of assessors. Applicants who we wish to consider for the role of lead assessor will be invited to a further interview. If you are not appointed, we may retain your application for future recruitment rounds. We will contact relevant applicants about this.