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Department: Cohort Implementation and Operations Manager
Location: Home based, UK (with occasional travel to our London office)
Reports to: Operations Performance Manager
Hours: 37.5 per week
Salary: (Depending on experience)
A quick note before you apply: This role is strictly UK-based and must be performed entirely within the United Kingdom; we do not employ remote staff overseas, nor do we offer relocation support. Candidates must have the legal right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment. While we hold a sponsor licence, visa sponsorship is only considered in exceptional circumstances and is not available as standard for this vacancy
Role Overview
As Cohort Implementation and Operations Manager, you will lead the team that turns every signed Funded Learning agreement into a cohort that launches on time and runs smoothly to completion.
Cambridge Spark delivers AI and data apprenticeships to large employers and public sector organisations, who expect the onboarding experience of an enterprise service: one clear plan, one point of coordination, and a launch that runs to schedule.
Your Cohort Implementation Leads manage each client's implementation from handover to kick off. Your Scheduling Lead maintains the calendar of cohort slots that Leads book into. Your Operations Coordinators provide support to live cohorts. You own how these fit together, and you are the senior point of contact for Sales and Delivery on onboarding and live cohort operations.
Key Responsibilities
- Make sure every agreed deal is handed from Sales to a Cohort Implementation Lead promptly, with the information they need, and own the handover standard with Sales.
- Be Sales' senior point of contact for onboarding: timelines, readiness and changes.
- Agree with Sales and other teams what information is needed for each new client, and when.
- Lead the handover into delivery, so delivery teams start with a full picture of the client and their goals.
- Allocate new clients across the Cohort Implementation Leads and balance their workload.
- Set the standard implementation plan that each Lead runs, from programme set-up and slot booking to kick off.
- Scope requests to tailor programmes to a client's context or tools, and agree realistic timelines with Product and Curriculum.
- Make sure tools discovery with our Senior Trainers is built into every implementation plan.
- Confirm each cohort is ready to launch, and agree the way forward with Sales when plans change.
- Lead complex or strategic client implementations yourself.
3. Plan scheduling and capacity
- Oversee the cohort calendar: the Scheduling Lead publishes slots for open and client-specific cohorts, and Leads book each new client's cohorts into them.
- Make sure the supply of cohort slots keeps pace with the sales forecast, opening more slots as the forecast and trainer headcount change.
- Work with Training and Delivery leads to ensure there is clear visibility on trainer capacity vs sales forecast.
- Give Sales a clear view of upcoming capacity to support their planning with clients.
4. Lead ongoing cohort management
- Lead the Operations Coordinators in keeping all live sessions, trainer allocations and learner support on track from kick off to completion.
- Make sure changes to live cohorts, such as trainer absence or rescheduled sessions, are handled quickly, with minimal disruption to learners and clear communication to clients, learners and Delivery.
- Monitor recurring operational issues across live cohorts and fix the underlying process, not just the individual case.
5. Lead and develop the team
- Line manage a team of six (the Scheduling Lead, three Cohort Implementation Leads and two Operations Coordinators), setting clear roles, priorities and objectives.
- Balance work across many concurrent cohorts, including at peak times.
- Build a team known across the business for being responsive, organised and easy to work with.
6. Improve how we work
- Track every new cohort through onboarding, and report progress and risks to Funded Learning leadership.
- Keep onboarding processes clear, documented and current.
- Use automation and AI tools to streamline scheduling and set-up.
Candidate Specification
Essential
- Experience leading a team of project or implementation managers across a large portfolio of concurrent B2B client implementations.
- A track record of building or improving an operational process, with the results to show for it.
- Confidence working with commercial colleagues and clients: setting realistic expectations and finding a way forward when plans change.
- Strong working knowledge of a CRM (HubSpot preferred) and of tracking work in tools such as Notion.
- An appetite for automating manual work, including with AI tools.
Desirable
- Implementation or client onboarding experience at an EdTech, online learning or executive education provider.
- Knowledge of UK apprenticeship delivery and funding rules.
- Experience scheduling shared delivery resources such as trainers or facilitators.
Company Benefits:
- Pension with 4% matched contributions, opportunity to opt into salary sacrifice scheme
- 25 days holiday + Flexi bank holidays + 1 day off on your birthday
- A day for volunteering
- Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Leave
- Health & Wellbeing allowance of up to £30 per month
- Annual Summer and Xmas events
- Company socials including everything from Cambridge College formals, pub nights to team building events
- CPD Allowance alongside quarterly reflections to ring fence time for development and growth
- Private medical insurance and cash plan
- Holiday buy back scheme (up to 10 days p/a)
- Employee Assistance Programme with a dedicated company counsellor
Background to our Organisation
We are an education technology company that enables corporate and government organisations to achieve their business goals by educating their workforce with critical digital transformation skills to succeed in the AI era.
We deliver unique and innovative professional education that is accelerating the digital transformation of our clients, advancing the careers of their employees, helping people get into work and closing the digital skills gap. We are in a sector that is crucial to the economy and workforce, with a lot of opportunity for change and innovation. We are at the cutting edge of teaching applied data and digital skills, with our unique patented learning platform EDUKATE.AI offering our clients and learners a unique learning experience. EDUKATE.AI was developed with support from Innovate UK and provides all of our learners with 24/7 immediate feedback on their work, helping accelerate the learning process and providing a sandbox environment to experiment on real world datasets.
Since 2016, we have supported more than 15,000 learners across four continents with nearly 550,000 pieces of code submitted for feedback on EDUKATE.AI. We are trusted by some of the most recognisable brands in the world to educate their workforce, including Microsoft, the NHS, GSK, easyJet, the BBC and John Lewis. Our focus on applied learning to create business impact sets us apart - individual learners have reported applying their skills at work to generate recorded value of up to £40m.
Our Values
At the centre of the way we work together and inspire each other to achieve success are these core values:
Entrepreneurial
We take initiative and show entrepreneurial spirit which fuels innovation at Cambridge Spark. This includes identifying opportunities for improvement, taking ownership for implementing solutions effectively and driving improvement by using proof of concepts to demonstrate the feasibility and value of their work.
Team Spirit
Everyone is part of building an open and transparent culture, communicating effectively to raise issues, discuss improvements and share the evidence used to make decisions.
Customer-focused
Our customers are at the centre of everything we do, inspiring us to create great work. We strive to build friendly, professional and lasting relationships with them to better understand and anticipate their needs.
Gold Standard
We are experts in our field and are constantly developing our technology and offering. We set the benchmark in our industry: both in what we offer customers and in how we deliver it.
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Cambridge Spark is an Equal Opportunities Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. Cambridge Spark is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunities for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at Cambridge Spark are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, colour or ethnicity, ability or disability, gender or gender reassignment, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, age or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. Cambridge Spark will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. Cambridge Spark encourages applicants of all ages.
