Product Owner

Product Owner

Location: London or Edinburgh

Salary: £38,000 – £46,000 (+ £3,300 London Weighting)

I’m currently recruiting for a Product Owner to join a globally recognised education and cultural organisation with a significant international presence.

This is an excellent opportunity to work within a major commercial function that supports millions of learners and candidates worldwide through digital products, English teaching, assessments and online learning services. The role offers the chance to take ownership of global digital systems and platforms, drive continuous improvement, support product growth across international markets and play a key part in shaping user-focused digital services within a complex, high-profile environment.

This is a senior-level role focused on managing global English systems and digital capabilities from an end-to-end lifecycle perspective. The successful candidate will support the continuous improvement of digital products, keep stakeholders informed on product development, promote product uptake, represent users throughout the delivery process and use feedback to drive ongoing improvement.

The role will be centred around ensuring customer needs remain at the heart of product decisions, while supporting the effective development, delivery and optimisation of digital platforms used across a large international environment.

Key responsibilities

Product and service development

· Manage the procurement, development, configuration, quality assurance, ongoing maintenance and support of both new and legacy systems and platforms

· Work to reduce duplication across the product portfolio, ensuring the most effective use of funds and resources

· Own and manage the Product Backlog, ensuring it is prioritised in line with business objectives

· Ensure the Product Backlog remains transparent, visible and clearly understood by stakeholders

· Support the rollout of new products at global, regional and country level

· Provide advice and support on any necessary product or platform modifications

· Take overall responsibility for quality assurance of content delivered through the systems

· Work closely with content development teams, technical teams, marketing, business development professionals and other stakeholders

· Ensure platform content adheres to brand guidelines

· Ensure the interface is user-friendly and designed to meet organisational requirements

· Maintain platform availability and functionality in line with agreed service level requirements

Consultancy, analysis and problem-solving

· Apply advanced knowledge and technical expertise to solve complex business issues relating to technical platforms

· Use specialist knowledge and appropriate techniques to identify and resolve platform-related challenges

· Contribute to the design and development of technical projects that support platform development

· Provide specialist technical advice and support to stakeholders

Relationship and stakeholder management

· Build and maintain effective relationships with internal and external partners and stakeholders

· Support joined-up delivery of project and platform goals within a complex matrix environment

· Provide appropriate data to internal teams such as Proposition, Marketing and Customer Management

· Develop business relationships with external consultants, technical innovators and suppliers

· Support the procurement of new solutions and implementation of new technologies where appropriate

· Advise business development managers on technical solutions

· Ensure proposals meet business needs

· Provide input into business cases on the suitability and cost of proposed solutions

· Develop peer and professional networks internally and externally to enhance knowledge and expertise

Financial management

· Use agreed corporate systems and processes to contribute to the planning and management of core platform budgets

· Support budget planning for special initiatives or change projects

· Contribute to monthly and year-end reporting on income, expenditure and risk

· Use reporting insights to improve financial planning, management and performance across online learning

Leadership and management

· Plan and prioritise work to ensure effective delivery across a varied range of responsibilities and deliverables

· Manage deliverables across a quarterly to annual time horizon

· Take on line management responsibilities where appropriate

· Determine work plans and coordinate input from others to meet objectives on time and within budget

· Contribute ideas to support the development of wider business plans, discipline-specific priorities and customer or platform-focused strategies

Certification and professional qualifications

· Agile project management qualification preferred

· ITIL certification desirable

Education

· First degree or equivalent qualification / experience

· Relevant role-specific knowledge and experience

Minimum requirements

· Track record of successfully creating, launching and scaling digital product development programmes for B2C and B2B markets

· Demonstrable experience managing products through agile processes

· Experience writing and working with user stories

Desirable experience

· Experience achieving business results through a globally dispersed team in a matrix environment

Important information

· Applicants must be a UK resident

· No visa sponsorship is available for this role

· This role is hybrid with no fully remote option

· A physical presence in the office is required for the success of this role

· The hybrid working pattern varies depending on office location

· Salt contact: Robert Sprigens, rsprigens@welovesalt.com

*Rates depend on experience and client requirements