Quality Improvement Manager (South)

Quality Improvement Manager (South)

Location: Home based with frequent National travel required.

Working pattern: Full time, 35 hours per week

Salary: Up to £55,000 depending on skills and experience

About the role:

This is a key leadership role responsible for raising standards in teaching, learning, and assessment across the South region. As Quality Improvement Manager, you’ll lead a regional team of Internal Quality Assurers and a Quality Improvement Officer, driving meaningful improvement across the full apprenticeship journey.

Working closely with Delivery Team Managers, Heads of Delivery, and colleagues in Curriculum and Digital Learning, you’ll ensure that quality assurance is not a stand-alone function, but a mechanism for driving meaningful and well-rounded improvement. You’ll take ownership of regional quality improvement plans, using data and findings to develop targeted interventions that support staff, promote consistency, and strengthen the overall apprentice experience.

From analysing sampling outcomes and learner feedback to coaching delivery staff and leading targeted interventions, you’ll take a collaborative, insight-driven approach to improvement. The work you lead will directly enhance teaching and assessment practice and ensure apprentices are well prepared, not just to pass assessments, but to succeed in the workplace and progress in their careers.

Job Purpose:

The postholder will ensure that apprentices and employers benefit from a high-quality teaching, learning, and assessment experience throughout the apprenticeship journey. Leading a multidisciplinary quality team of Quality Assurers and a Quality Improvement Officer, they will ensure that apprentices receive a well-rounded learning experience that extends beyond qualification attainment, supporting their technical, personal, and professional development to achieve long-term career success.

The postholder will oversee the implementation of JTL’s quality assurance and improvement policy, ensuring that data, findings, and insights are accurately interpreted to provide leaders and managers with a clear understanding of strengths and areas for development. Acting on these findings, they will develop and implement targeted improvement plans, ensuring that actions drive sustained enhancements in the quality of apprenticeship provision and lead to measurable improvements over time.

Through collaboration with Delivery Team Managers, Heads of Delivery, and the wider quality and curriculum teams, the postholder will maintain high standards in line with Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework, awarding body expectations, and sector regulations, ensuring apprentices develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviours required for success in their apprenticeship and future careers.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

• Lead and manage a team consisting of a Quality Improvement Officer and Internal Quality Assurers, providing direction, support, and oversight to ensure quality assurance and improvement activities are delivered effectively, consistently, and in alignment with JTL’s strategic objectives.
• Plan, allocate, and oversee IQA sampling activities, ensuring they are completed within agreed timescales and to a high standard.
• Review and moderate the work of IQAs to ensure consistency in quality assurance activities, giving confidence to Training Officers, Tutors, and the Head of Quality that judgments and feedback are fair and reliable.
• Ensure that quality assurance processes evaluate the end-to-end delivery of specified knowledge, skills, and behaviours across the entire apprenticeship standard, not just qualification attainment, so that apprentices benefit from outstanding teaching, learning, and assessment practices and are fully prepared for first-time success at end-point assessment.
• Maintain and regularly update quality risk profiles for Training Officers, Tutors, JTL centres, and subcontractor delivery partners, ensuring that sampling activities and interventions remain proportionate to identified risks and performance trends.
• Contribute to the development, implementation, and maintenance of robust internal quality assurance processes, ensuring compliance with awarding organisations, regulatory bodies, and internal expectations.
• Act as a named point of contact for awarding organisations, working closely with them to ensure compliance with external quality assurance requirements and the maintenance of direct claims status (DCS).
• Work with the Registrations, Exams, Certification, and Claims (RECC) team to coordinate EQA/SV visits and provide guidance on Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) assessments.
• Establish a risk-based schedule for JTL centre and subcontractor delivery partner quality visits, ensuring visits are completed in a timely manner and targeted where they are needed most.
• Moderate findings from quality visits to ensure judgments are fair, accurate, and reliable, formed through triangulating a range of valid evidence (e.g., observations, apprentice and employer feedback, Functional Skills delivery, safeguarding awareness), and providing detailed recommendations for improvement.
• Work collaboratively with Delivery Team Managers and Heads of Delivery to develop and implement impactful improvement actions where areas for development are identified within JTL centres and/or subcontractor delivery partners, ensuring apprentices benefit from rapid improvements in the quality of teaching, learning, and/or assessment.
• Contribute to the self-assessment report and quality improvement plan, ensuring that findings from quality assurance and improvement activities within own area provide accurate insights on regional strengths and areas for development.
• Produce monthly quality management reports for the Assistant Director of Operations and Head of Quality, outlining key trends, identified risks, and the impact of interventions, drawing on a broad range of reliable and valid evidence (e.g., apprentice progress, attendance, IQA sampling outcomes, quality visit findings, employer feedback, and apprenticeship accountability framework data) to evaluate the quality of apprenticeship provision.
• Actively participate in Quality Scorecard meetings, supporting Delivery Team Managers and Heads of Delivery to develop a rounded and accurate understanding of the quality of apprenticeship provision within their respective areas/region.
• Identify and promote best practice in teaching, learning, and assessment, ensuring that exemplary approaches observed by the quality team are shared across JTL centres and subcontractor delivery partners.
• Identify training and CPD needs for Training Officers and Tutors, consulting with the Technical Specialist Training Manager where appropriate, to ensure staff receive targeted interventions and professional development to improve their teaching and assessment practice.
• Analyse findings from both quality improvement and quality assurance activities, and agree themes for impactful standardisation and moderation meetings, ensuring staff are supported to improve teaching, learning, and assessment.
• Promote a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement by ensuring that all quality staff provide appropriate support to individuals where concerns about teaching, learning, and assessment are identified, using one-to-one training, coaching, and mentoring as key improvement tools to empower staff, build confidence, and enhance the overall quality of teaching, learning, and assessment practices.
• Ensure that all quality assurance and improvement activities are benchmarked against Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework, aligning JTL’s provision with outstanding expectations.
• Monitor and intervene to ensure actions set by quality assurance and improvement teams are completed in a timely manner, ensuring accountability for driving rapid improvement.
• Keep own knowledge up to date through regular CPD, ensuring that all quality strategies, processes, and practices remain aligned with industry and regulatory expectations.

About you:

You’ll be a confident and credible quality professional with a strong track record of improving teaching, learning, and assessment within apprenticeship provision. With experience of leading teams and managing IQA activity, you’ll bring a deep understanding of the Education Inspection Framework, awarding body requirements, and the wider post-16 landscape.

You’ll have sound judgement, the ability to analyse data with purpose, and the interpersonal skills to influence colleagues at all levels. A natural collaborator, you’ll enjoy working across teams to embed high standards and support staff to deliver their best. You’ll be comfortable presenting findings and turning evidence into practical, targeted actions that lead to real and sustained improvement.

Person Specification

Essential Requirements:

• Degree-level qualification or extensive relevant industry experience.
• Teaching qualification at Level 4 or above.
• Assessor qualification (e.g., A1, Level 3 TAQA) and Internal Quality Assurer qualification (e.g., V1, Level 4 TAQA).
• GCSE English A-C (9-4) or equivalent.
• Proven experience in improving the quality of teaching, learning, and assessment in apprenticeships.
• Extensive experience in quality improvement, quality assurance processes, and the annual quality cycle.
• Demonstrable experience using Learning Management Systems (LMS) that support the full learner journey, including platforms such as Smart Assessor and PICSWeb.
• Strong working knowledge of safeguarding and health and safety legislation.
• Excellent understanding of apprenticeships, Ofsted best practice, and the Education Inspection Framework (EIF).
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Full UK driving licence and willingness to travel nationally.

Desirable:

• Leadership or management qualification (e.g., ILM, CMI Level 5 or above).
• Coaching and mentoring qualification (e.g. ILM, CMI Level 5 or above).
• Advanced qualifications at Level 4 in Electrical and/or Mechanical services.
• Experience of contributing to successful Ofsted inspections.

This role requires an Enhanced DBS check.

Applicants who are shortlisted for interview will be subject to Social Media checks.