Job Title: IELTS Portfolio Manager
Salary: £45,100 - £60,400 per annum
Location: Cambridge, UK/Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full Time – 35 hours per week
Play a pivotal role in shaping how one of the world's most trusted education products is planned, governed and delivered. If you enjoy bringing clarity to complexity and enabling teams to deliver meaningful outcomes, this is a chance to make a real impact across the global IELTS portfolio.
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
About The Role
As the IELTS Portfolio Manager, you will play a central role in enabling clear, effective, and strategically aligned delivery across the entire IELTS portfolio. Working closely with the Head of Planning, you will maintain a consolidated view of all IELTS initiatives, supporting value delivery for learners, customers, and global partners.
You will align project and programme activity, ensure risks and dependencies are well‑managed, produce high‑quality reporting for governance forums, and enable informed decision‑making across product, technology, and delivery teams. This role is critical in helping IELTS operate as a product‑led, strategically aligned portfolio that delivers meaningful outcomes.
Key responsibilities include:
* Maintaining an accurate, current picture of the IELTS portfolio covering scope, progress, risks, issues, and dependencies.
* Producing high‑quality portfolio reports and dashboards to support prioritisation and governance.
* Coordinating financial and resource tracking, helping highlight pinch points and opportunities.
* Supporting governance processes, including preparing documentation and ensuring initiatives follow frameworks.
* Facilitating clear communication across product owners, delivery teams, change teams, and governance forums.
* Supporting product‑led ways of working, ensuring portfolio decisions align with customer needs, product roadmaps, and iterative delivery.
* Identifying opportunities to improve portfolio practices, reporting, and cross‑team collaboration.
You will collaborate widely across IELTS product teams, Cambridge technology and governance groups, the wider programmes and business analysis community, and key cross‑functional stakeholders.
This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face‑to‑face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long‑term health condition.
About You
You will be an experienced portfolio or programme professional who enjoys bringing order, insight and momentum to complex change environments. Confident working across multiple teams, you will be comfortable navigating ambiguity and supporting delivery at pace while keeping sight of the bigger picture.
This role suits someone who thrives on coordination, values strong stakeholder alignment, and takes satisfaction in enabling others to deliver meaningful outcomes through clear, well‑informed decision‑making.
You will bring
* The ability to translate portfolio data into clear insights that support prioritisation and strategic choices.
* Confidence operating within governance frameworks and preparing high‑quality assurance and reporting for senior forums.
* A collaborative, inclusive approach to working across product, delivery, change and governance communities.
* Commercial awareness, with the ability to spot financial, resourcing and delivery pinch points early and escalates effectively.
If you meet the above minimum requirements, we encourage you to apply. Your application will be even stronger if you can also demonstrate the following desirable criteria:
* Sector Knowledge: Experience in the assessment and/or learning sector.
* Cross Partner Working: Experience working with external partners or within complex multi‑organisation collaborations.
* Continuous Improvement Mindset: Experience identifying ways to refine reporting processes, reduce duplication, and embed best practices across delivery teams.
* Exposure to Enterprise Portfolio Functions: Understanding of how local portfolio management aligns with enterprise‑wide prioritisation, financial processes, and strategic governance.
* Facilitation Skills: Ability to run or contribute meaningfully to governance forums, cross‑team meetings, and decision‑making groups.
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 best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable, 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.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the gov.uk website for guidance to understand your own eligibility based on the role you are applying for.
Rewards And Benefits
* 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
Ready to pursue your potential?
We aim to support candidates by making our interview process clear and transparent. The closing date for all applications will be 15th April 2026. We will review applications on an ongoing basis, and shortlisted candidates can expect interviews to take place week commencing 20th April 2026.
If you are shortlisted and progressed through the stages, you can expect:
* In person interview at our office in Cambridge. There will be a task to prepare for as part of the interview process.
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.
We are committed to an equitable recruitment process. As such, applications must be submitted via our official online application procedure. Please refrain from sending your CV directly to our recruiters. If you experience technical difficulties or require additional support with submitting your online application, contact the Recruiter.
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.
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