Business Planning Lead

At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen.

Business Planning Lead

Permanent

Manchester: £58,712 - £66,203

Smart Working - Approximately 2 days per week in office although this may be more depending on work requirements.  

Ready to lead and shape the future of business planning at AQA? Imagine being the key person who ensures our business plans align with our strategic goals, enabling us to deliver impactful results.

We’re looking for an experienced Business Planning Lead who can collaborate across the company, influence key decisions, and support the alignment of business area plans to AQA’s strategic goals. Your expertise will enable us to deliver our vision effectively and efficiently, working closely with teams across the business and working closely with finance and people group to ensure holistic business plans.

As our Business Planning Lead, you’ll be responsible for re-designing and leading our business planning process while ensuring ongoing improvements. You’ll work alongside business area leaders to create a prioritised plan, assess dependencies, and manage resources. Your role will involve influencing decisions, reporting to senior leaders and the executive team, leading by example and coaching others in the PMO team. Success in this role requires extensive experience in business planning, strong communication and stakeholder management skills, and the ability to handle complex projects with confidence and autonomy.

What you’ll get: 

• Generous Annual Leave: 25 days of annual leave, increasing to 30 days with service, plus all Bank Holidays and additional Christmas office closure. 

• Flexible Working: A 35-hour week with the empowerment to deliver requirements of your role when it suits everyone.  

• Develop yourself at work: Receive sponsorship for apprenticeships and other qualifications.  

• Competitive Pension Scheme: Excellent contributory pension plan (6% - 11.5% based on your contribution). 

• Your health and wellbeing: BUPA private medical insurance, gym membership/ access and free access the Headspace app. 

• Other benefits: Life assurance, electric car salary sacrifice and an enhanced maternity/paternity scheme. 

Ready to apply? 

If the role looks of interest and you would like to apply, please do so via our portal. Every application will be provided with a written response! 

Closing date for applications will be Wednesday 16th October. We are reviewing applications as they come through and reserve the right to close this role early. 

Recruitment Agencies

We have a preferred supplier list (PSL) in place.

Unsolicited CVs will be treated as a gift. We will not be subject to or liable under your terms and conditions for agency fees.

Full Job Description

Summary

Purpose:
The main purpose of the role is to lead, implement, and support activities that will drive a culture of planning, performance, continuous improvement and delivery. Enabling and influencing all business areas to make decisions on priorities as one in AQA, to ensure we successfully deliver the organisations objectives and manage our resources holistically, effectively and efficiently. Working with the business to ensure the dissemination of an organisation-wide business plan, allowing all colleagues to understand the part they play in achieving this.
The Business Planning Lead will require strong people skills such as: collaboration, influencing, guidance and support. And contribute their knowledge and experience to the ongoing development of portfolio management services within AQA, coaching and mentor other PMO team members as well as building credibility in order to drive the direction and delivery of business planning in AQA. The role will report to the Head of Enterprise PMO and work closely with stakeholders across the business.Landscape:
The role sits in the Business Change Hubs, which lie within the wider Corporate Services Office in the newly formed Enterprise PMO team. It ensures that the organisations business plans (financial, people, and delivery) clearly articulate business area contributions to enable the delivery of the strategic and operational outcomes. Providing timely and insightful reporting on the overall state of business planning, including reports to the Executive Team and Board of Trustees. 
Activities:
Responsible for re-designing, leading and facilitating the Business Planning Process as well as its ongoing continuous improvement. This includes but is not limited to: planning & resource planning support, dependency management, change control, insights & analysis and reporting.
Act as business partner to a number of business area planning leads, in-order to create a shared single prioritised plan, covering all key activity in the near team (next 12 months in detail), and medium term (2-5 years high level).
Provide support and challenge/influence to the business area plans developed through the business planning process, ensuring they are driven by AQA’s strategic or core business objectives.
In conjunction with the Finance, Technology, and People teams, work through the implications of the business area plans (budgets, workforce planning, skills and training requirements, organisational change load, technology requirements), collaborating to identify solutions where they exceed the available organisations resources.
Collate and evaluate the core interdependencies, key assumptions, and risk/opportunities across business area plans. Working closely with business colleagues as required to create clarity on the potential business impact of key external and internal change drivers, ensuring contingencies and countermeasures are in place to help AQA respond to these changes.
In conjunction with the Finance, Technology and People teams, establish measurement criteria to monitor and report on the delivery of the agreed business plans.
Coach, mentor and advise other team members to build overall knowledge and expertise on business planning standards and best practice. Driving personal and professional development to facilitate cross skilling across the team, identify ways to continually improve team processes and ways of working.
Review and report on resource and dependency management across the portfolio of change
Develop strong working relationships with colleagues at all levels by working collaboratively together using data analysis, trend analysis and modelling to help make business optimum decisions.
Contribute to the ongoing development of services offered by the Enterprise PMO team.
Effectively lead and line manage team members to ensure high levels of performance, if required by the business.
To be successful in this role, you will need:
Experience
Extensive experience in leading Business Planning and effectively designing, delivering and continuously improving business planning processes
Experience of preparing plans and reports
Experience of financial and non-financial analysis
Knowledge
Broad knowledge of a range of best practice techniques for on-going business planning activity, ensuring an integrated approach encompassing business activity and financial exemplification.
An expert knowledge of analysis techniques and the ability to gather, analyse and produce accurate artefacts and management information in a way that tells a clear story and enables effective decision making
Strong Microsoft 365 skills with applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams
Skills
Demonstrate a strong business partnering approach, characterised by support, challenge, influencing and facilitation, and in-line with approach to business partnering used across AQA.
Facilitate cross-departmental team collaborations to produce desired outcomes.
Strong communication skills, both oral and written.
Ability to present complex strategic, operational and financial matters in an easily understood way.
Demonstrable ability to produce and maintain high quality documentation with strong attention to detail
Proven analytical skills to facilitate decision making with a track record of innovation to continuously improve results and demonstrate impact.
Ability to deal with ambiguity and the ability to make recommendations to drive performance and progress.
The ability to prioritise and deliver ambitious goals and objectives to deadlines with excellent project management skills.
Ability to multi-task and prioritise a range of work streams and ensure follow-through of actions to conclusion.
Excellent stakeholder engagement, management and relationship building skills and ability to interact credibly and genuinely with stakeholders at all levels (including up to executive team level).
Strong propensity for collaboration and proven track record of working closely with peers to achieve outputs.
Ability to operate autonomously, an inspiring self-starter demonstrating passion, energy and drive.
Able to identify and lead initiatives to continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the team and service offering
Demonstrates resilience and calmness under pressure to meet tight deadlines in complex contexts
Receive and give feedback and learn from successes and mistakes for continuous self-development
Leadership skills
Ability to take ownership of both business planning and continuous improvement activities, delivering through self and others
Work flexibly and adapt management style to get the best results
Inspire and motivate team members and other colleagues
Ability to coach and mentor individuals to support individual development and wider departmental continuous improvement
Ability to lead by example to develop and maintain effective working relationships with a range of partners and stakeholders