Strategic Planning Partner

What we offer

• 41 days of holiday (27 days' annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 6 closure days).
• Hybrid working, with up to 60% of the week remote.
• An excellent defined benefit pension scheme.
• Cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan, on-site nursery and discounted gym membership.
• Wellbeing support, learning and development, and staff discounts.

About us

UCL is London's Global University, where big ideas become real-world impact. Delivering that across 11 Faculties, several campuses and a large, highly devolved community takes careful, joined-up planning. That's our job.

The Office of the Vice-Provost (Strategy) develops UCL's institutional strategy and makes sure our overarching goals are reflected in plans at every level of the university. We're five closely connected teams:

• Strategic Planning - runs UCL's planning processes, including Faculty and Vice-Provost Office planning, student number planning and tuition fee setting.
• Academic Strategy Development - shapes UCL's long-term academic strategy, starting with a university-wide conversation on 'Academic Ambition' and linked closely to long-term space planning and Phase 2 of UCL East.
• Data & Insight - provides the management information and insight that supports better decisions across UCL.
• Strategy Implementation - tracks how institutional strategy is being delivered.
• UCL East - runs the operations and governance of our newest campus, provides shared specialist facilities and plans its future.

We work closely with colleagues right across UCL, including the Vice-Provost and Vice-President offices, UCL Estates, UCL Finance and the Office of the General Counsel, on everything from the Estates Masterplan to the next phase of UCL East.

You'll join the Strategic Planning team, which supports the Provost & President and the University Management Committee. We coordinate academic plans, give advice and constructive challenge to senior leaders, and help make sure local plans fit with UCL's academic, financial, estates and digital strategies, with good data informing every decision.

About the role

In an organisation as large and devolved as UCL, good strategic planning is hard, and that's what makes it rewarding. As a Strategic Planning Partner, you'll connect UCL's institutional priorities with the Faculties that deliver them.

You'll be part of a team of Partners, each looking after a portfolio of Faculties. You'll get to know your Faculties well: their priorities, their pressures and how they work. As a trusted adviser, you'll offer analysis, insight and, when it's needed, honest challenge, helping Faculties turn their ambitions into plans they can deliver. Each Faculty is different, so you'll balance a consistent, university-wide service with an approach that fits each one.

What you'll be doing

• Partnering with a portfolio of Faculties to deliver UCL's strategic priorities through good planning, problem-solving and stakeholder engagement
• Building a detailed understanding of each Faculty's priorities, challenges and operating context to inform planning and decision-making
• Providing strategic analysis, advice and constructive challenge so that Faculty and institutional decisions are well informed
• Supporting the Integrated Planning Cycle, with a particular focus on your partner Faculties
• Leading student number planning for your Faculties, including setting student number and offer targets
• Leading the tuition fee review for your Faculties, with analysis and recommendations that inform strategic and financial decisions
• Supporting new course initiation and approval with planning insight and stakeholder coordination, so that new courses fit institutional priorities and planning assumptions
• Providing secretariat support to Faculty Recruitment and Admissions Groups and other sub-groups of the Recruitment and Admissions Committee, coordinating recruitment planning and performance monitoring, and raising key risks and opportunities early
• Working with the Data & Insight team to identify and deliver the data that supports good planning at Faculty level
• Improving the processes, systems, data and tools behind strategic planning
• Working with fellow Partners to keep our planning service consistent, coordinated and high quality across the university

You'll also lead on one or more projects or specialist areas within the Strategic Planning team and the wider Office, and help shape how the Office develops. You'll be building an important service at a globally leading university, using modern approaches to analysis, problem-solving, service design and delivery.

Like all UCL colleagues, you'll follow and promote the UCL Ways of Working. We'd also welcome your involvement in wider university life, such as volunteering as a fire marshal or first aider, joining a committee, helping at student open days or supporting EDI initiatives.

This is a hybrid role. You can normally work remotely for up to 40% of your week if you'd like to, with your time on campus split between Bloomsbury and UCL East. Campus remains the contractual place of work

About you

You're a natural planner and problem-solver. You enjoy getting to grips with complex issues and working with others to design practical solutions. You're proactive and spot problems before they grow. You communicate with confidence and build credibility with people at all levels, from academic departments to senior leadership, and you're comfortable offering honest challenge when it matters.

You'll also bring an entrepreneurial streak: you're willing to try new ideas and experiment with new products and services that help strategy happen in a complex organisation. Higher education experience is welcome but not required. A genuine interest in universities and the sector is what counts.

Essential criteria

• Educated to degree level, or equivalent experience in report writing, data analysis and presentations
• Knowledge and experience of effective strategy delivery and performance management, and of converting ambitious goals into practical programmes of action
• Experience of co-designing solutions to complex delivery issues
• Experience of analysing data from a range of sources and in a range of formats to identify issues and design solutions
• Experience of communicating clearly and concisely in a range of formats to different audiences
• Experience of providing challenge and critique in the delivery of significant projects and priorities
• Experience of building constructive working relationships with colleagues at all levels within an organisation
• Knowledge of, or interest in, working in a university setting and/or the higher education sector more broadly
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to show initiative and be proactive in identifying and dealing with issues as they arise
• Strong communication skills, including the personal credibility to present information in a variety of formats to different audiences
• Influencing, negotiation and persuasion skills with senior and less senior staff, and with external contacts, clients and suppliers
• Strong organisational and project-planning skills
• Ability to support senior governance forums through effective planning, coordination and administration, including preparing papers, advising chairs on meeting management, and making sure actions are accurately recorded and followed up
• Clearly and proactively setting out expectations and goals to teams, colleagues and partners, empowering them to work toward solutions (UCL Ways of Working)
• Proactively influencing people and ideas to reach outcomes that benefit the organisation (UCL Ways of Working)

Desirable criteria

• Specific training in strategy delivery, performance management or programme management
• Experience of supporting academic departments and/or Faculties with student number planning, tuition fee setting and new course initiation
• Creativity, innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset
• Knowledge of, or interest in, working in a public-purpose organisation or sector, such as government or an NGO

When you apply, please copy each criterion into your supporting statement and explain beneath it how you meet it, with examples. We'll score your application against each one.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation. We're committed to being fair and inclusive and to being a place where everyone belongs, and we particularly encourage applications from people likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.