In all stages of my career, I have looked to bring as much value as I can, which for me, has meant looking beyond the job description and volunteering to be involved in projects which are beyond the day job. 

What is your current role, and what does your team do at BCUBS?

I’m affectionately called a ‘DoSO’ in polite circles – Director of School Operations. This entails supporting the Dean on a range of operational, strategic and governance activities so that the School can deliver its business plan. I moved into this role in February 2026, and I’m still finding out what this means in practice, and it’s fair to say ‘variety’ is a key theme.

Since joining, I’ve led a refresh of our risk register, led on a major business case to enhance the student experience for our finance and accounting students and refreshed how we use our notice boards – quite a span of operations, as you can see!

When did you get into HE and why?

I joined HE in the summer of 1995 when I had just graduated and I didn’t know what to do career-wise. I joined the University of Central England (now BCU!) as a clerical assistant in the Business School to support the summer’s confirmation and clearing processes. This was in the day of paper UCAS forms and decentralisation. Through pure serendipity and a line manager who was prepared to give me a chance (thank you, Linda), I ended up being there for 6 years and I’m living proof of the ‘accidental professional’.

What did you do to progress your career?

Looking back, I think the following helped me to progress:

Qualifications.

I have always loved learning despite having quite an average set of GCSEs. With undergraduate degrees becoming more ubiquitous – an outcome of higher education being more accessible compared to pre-1980s – I felt the need to always demonstrate to both myself and a future employer my capabilities and gaining relevant postgraduate credentials was the route to do this. Completing an EMBA in 2025 at the tender age of 52 was certainly the hardest but most challenging academic award.

Mobility.

In professional services circles, ‘promotion’ does not happen in the same way as it does for academic staff. We have to actively apply for the next role when there’s a vacancy and gain promotion through a more competitive process. For me, this meant being open to moving to a different university in order to progress. I have found this really valuable as I’ve gained a wealth of experience from both Russell Group and post-1992 institutions and built up a superb network of great people. There have been downsides of course – commuting up to 80 miles a day can be tiring/expensive and the pressure of being on probation for up to 12 months each time I’ve moved can’t be underestimated.

Getting involved.

In all stages of my career, I have looked to bring as much value as I can, which for me, has meant looking beyond the job description and volunteering to be involved in projects which are beyond the day job. I have found this to be an excellent way of getting to know people across the organisation whom I wouldn’t ordinarily get to see. From an operational perspective this brings valuable insight into how the whole ecosystem operates and the multitude of dependencies we all have.

What role has AHEP played in your career?

In my early career, the AUA (AHEP’s predecessor) played a massive role in educating me about the sector. I pushed myself to deliver workshops at the annual conferences and be a mentor on the PG Cert. More recently, I’ve become an Associate Consultant which has given me another perspective on what is happening across the sector and the key role that professional administrators, managers and leaders still play.

AHEP has validated my long-held belief that everyone in higher education can be trusted to bring value and professionalism to a university – being on an academic contract does not implicitly bring value and capability to non-teaching/research activities.

What do you predict will happen to the HE sector in the next 10 years?

I think we will see more HEIs developing ‘regional alliances’ which will take various forms. At one end of this spectrum, I think it will be about agreeing how each regional HEI will deliver value for the local region and economy based on each university’s key capabilities rather than actively competing with each other on everything. At the other end of the spectrum, we will see more mergers. Some of these will be a ‘meeting of equals’ – two organisations with complementary capabilities that produce something greater than the two parts. Some HEIs will collapse under the combined weight of being unable to meet increased compliance requirements, rising operational costs and falling student demand. There are some universities who are, sadly, already in this perfect storm.

I think the sector will also move more towards shared back-office services and even full outsourcing of some services. There hasn’t been huge traction on this yet, but it will happen as providers seek to avoid or temporarily dodge the perfect storm.

I hope to see the rise of micro-credentials as a consequence of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. This will provide learners with a deep dive into specialist content which side steps the need to commit to a full degree and provides learners with accessible, relevant and specialist capacity building. For HEIs it generally means routinely adopting what most business schools have been delivering through their Executive Education arm – agile, professionally applied education underpinned by academic rigour. Professional services staff will need to play a key role in establishing and managing this infrastructure.

Would you like to share your career and AHEP story? Get in touch with the team to express your interest: hello@ahep.ac.uk

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