Product Manager

Coventry (CV1 2WT), Manchester (M1 2WD), London (SW1P 3BT), Sheffield (S1 2FJ)

Job Summary
The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) is a fast paced, challenging and exciting place to work. Our work supports a core strand of the Department of Education's strategy, delivering national curriculum assessments that support a high performing, world class, education system. STA offers a rare opportunity to bring together the work from policy inception, right through to delivery and implementation in schools. We're passionate about ensuring that every child leaves their school ready to make a successful start at their next stage of education. Assessment is one of the Department's highest-profile areas, with far-reaching changes taking place in recent years and with more to come.

The Division
The Assessment Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Division is accountable for the digital technology and data management used to produce and deliver assessments that meet the purposes set out by Ministers.

It is also responsible for a programme of transformation work that will allow greater use of digital automation, data and technology in the way that STA carries out its functions. This exciting programme will transform how digital technology is used to enable high-quality assessment and learning. It has potential to reduce teacher workloads and give them more data to inform their practice. We are passionate about making technology work in meaningful ways to support pedagogy, and we are looking for someone who shares this passion.

The Post
This is an exciting opportunity within the STA's Assessment Digital Data and Technology (ADDaT) Division as we look to build upon our existing digital service capability. The role is central to the growth of digital transformation within STA, ensuring the quality of our digital products and services.

Job Description
As a Product Manager, you will provide product management leadership enabling the growth of digital transformation within STA. You will work closely with a range of colleagues across the STA and the Department for Education, as well as suppliers, to set the direction for digital products and services. You will be part of motivated and multidisciplinary teams, who are passionate about the work they do and are committed to delivering exemplary services for their users.

As a Product Manager, responsibilities will include, but not limited to:

• Lead one or more multidisciplinary teams to deliver solutions and iteratively improve digital services.
• Be an expert and advocate for your product/s, able to simplify technical concepts and bring people along with you to develop and iterate the service.
• Develop a thorough understanding of the products users and their needs, to champion these in your team and with stakeholders and partners.
• Create value for money and champion working in the open.
• Collaboratively define, explain, and iterate an evidence-based product vision that is compelling to your users, team, and stakeholders.
• Share user insights to policy and other teams, maintaining strong stakeholder relationships to bring teams in the wider service ecosystem together.
• Set measurable goals for your product and report against these to demonstrate progress.
• Analyse and use trusted data from research, analysis or other sources to make decisions and enable continuous improvement.
• Reflect on and help improve your team's ways of working, being enthusiastic and willing to muck in when needed.
• Prioritise problems and opportunities to tackle, balancing the needs of users, policy goals, value for taxpayer money and technical feasibility.
• Play an active role in the Department's Product Community of Practice, where Product Managers across DfE come together to share learning, celebrate progress, and solve for common problems.
• Contribute to the wider DfE community and culture, such as by supporting other more junior product managers through mentoring or working cross service on problems like incident management.

As a Product Manager, you will provide product management leadership enabling the growth of digital transformation within STA. You will work closely with a range of colleagues across the STA and the Department for Education, as well as suppliers, to set the direction for digital products and services. You will be part of motivated and multidisciplinary teams, who are passionate about the work they do and are committed to delivering exemplary services for their users.

As a Product Manager, responsibilities will include, but not limited to:

• Lead one or more multidisciplinary teams to deliver solutions and iteratively improve digital services.
• Be an expert and advocate for your product/s, able to simplify technical concepts and bring people along with you to develop and iterate the service.
• Develop a thorough understanding of the products users and their needs, to champion these in your team and with stakeholders and partners.
• Create value for money and champion working in the open.
• Collaboratively define, explain, and iterate an evidence-based product vision that is compelling to your users, team, and stakeholders.
• Share user insights to policy and other teams, maintaining strong stakeholder relationships to bring teams in the wider service ecosystem together.
• Set measurable goals for your product and report against these to demonstrate progress.
• Analyse and use trusted data from research, analysis or other sources to make decisions and enable continuous improvement.
• Reflect on and help improve your team's ways of working, being enthusiastic and willing to muck in when needed.
• Prioritise problems and opportunities to tackle, balancing the needs of users, policy goals, value for taxpayer money and technical feasibility.
• Play an active role in the Department's Product Community of Practice, where Product Managers across DfE come together to share learning, celebrate progress, and solve for common problems.
• Contribute to the wider DfE community and culture, such as by supporting other more junior product managers through mentoring or working cross service on problems like incident management.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Experience of working as a product owner/manager within an Agile environment.
• Leadership: sound leadership skills to set a product vision and build support for it, lead and motivate teams of people within and external to their organisation.
• Strategic ownership: experience of developing long-term product visions and roadmaps focusing on outcomes.
• User focus: experience of meeting user needs bringing insight and expertise in how user needs evolve.
• Problem management: ability to anticipate problems in digital products and services, demonstrating an understating of how the problem fits into the large picture, and seeking positive solutions.
• Communication and stakeholder engagement: excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable Criteria

• Knowledge of the Government Digital Service (GDS) standards.
• Knowledge of, or desire to learn about, digital products and services used to deliver large-scale assessments.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.
Further information can be found on the DDaT Capability Framework.

Alongside your salary of £58,185, Department for Education contributes £16,856 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Applicants currently holding a permanent post in the Civil Service should note that, if successful, their salary on appointment would be determined by the Department's transfer / promotion policies.

As a member of the DfE, you will be entitled to join the highly competitive Civil Service Pension Scheme, which many experts agree is one of the most generous in the UK.

You will have 25 days leave, increasing by 1 day every year to a maximum of 30 days after five years' service. In addition, all staff receive the King's Birthday privilege holiday and 8 days' bank and public holidays.

We offer flexible working arrangements, such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.

Most DfE employees will be working a hybrid pattern, spending at least 60% of their time in an office or work setting. Changes to these working arrangements are available in exceptional circumstances but must be agreed with the line manager and in line with the requirements of the role.

Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DfE, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.

As an organisation, which exists to support education and lifelong learning, we offer our staff excellent professional development opportunities.

Selection process details

To apply for this role, please select
'Apply Now'
at the top or bottom of this advert. CV details need to be included in the template within the application form; attached or emailed CVs will not be considered.

Please be advised there are
two stages
to the recruitment process for this role, these are outlined below.

Stage 1 – Application
At sift stage, you will be assessed on your Experience in line with the essential skills listed in the person specification section of the job advert.

To Apply For This Role, Please Provide

• A Short CV setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role.
• A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1000 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the job advert.

To confirm, the maximum word count for the statement of suitability is
100
0 words
. Please adhere to this limit as anything over
100
0
words
will not be taken into account.

The CV and Statement of Suitability will be assessed against the essential criteria detailed in the advert.

If you are successful at application sift stage, your application will be progressed onto Stage 2 part of the Selection process.

Should there be a high volume of applicants, candidates may be sifted on the first three (3) essential criteria.
Application sifting will take place week commencing 05 January 2026. Please note these dates are subject to change.

We receive many applications, and unfortunately, we're not able to provide feedback for candidates who aren't shortlisted.

Stage 2 - Assessment/Interview
The interview will be a 2 part process:
Part 1:
Completion of a small delivery task which we will send to you prior to the interview.

A 5 minute presentation will form part of the interview process to test the Experiences specified in the advert.

Closer to the time of the interviews, candidates will be sent details of the assessment, which will include the scenario and guidance for completing the presentation. Please be prepared for follow up questions from the panel, in relation to your presentation.

Part 2:
You will be asked a series of questions to assess your experience in line with the essential criteria listed above.

Interviews will take place towards the end of January 2026. Please note these dates are subject to change. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Interviews will be held over video conferencing using MS Teams. If you are invited to interview, please ensure that you have access to this software and that you have your video turned on. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We receive many applications, and unfortunately we're not able to provide feedback for candidates who aren't shortlisted. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

All communications will be electronic therefore it is vitally important that you check your Civil Service Jobs account regularly, as well as your spam/junk email folder.
Other Information
Interviews may be via Microsoft teams or face to face; the vacancy manager will confirm prior to the Interview.

In your application, please don't include personal information that identifies you.

This means we can recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - it's called name blind recruitment (opens in a new window).

Please ensure that you remove from your application, all references to your:

• name/title
• educational institutions
• age
• gender
• email address
• postal address
• phone number
• nationality/immigration status

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

We reserve the right to raise the minimum pass mark in the event of a high volume or strong field of candidates.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK from the location options provided and not from overseas.

The government is committed to supporting apprenticeships, enabling people to learn and progress in a role whilst earning. We want to monitor the number of people who have completed apprenticeships who are now applying to progress further in their career and are asking this question to all candidates, on all vacancies. You will be asked a question as part of the application process about any previous apprenticeships you have completed. Your response to this question will not affect your application and it is not a requirement of the role to have completed a previous apprenticeship.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check maybe carried out.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstance some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Department of Education of your intention by emailing Pre- stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Department for Education do not cover the cost of travel to your interview/assessment unless otherwise stated.

A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.

Candidates will be posted in merit order based upon location preference. Where more than one location is advertised you will be asked to state your preferred location.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

Terms and conditions of candidates transferring from ALBs and NDPBs
Bodies that are not accredited by the Civil Service Commission and are not able to advertise at Across Government on Civil Service jobs will be treated as external new starters and will come into DfE on modernised terms and conditions with a salary at the band minimum.

Bodies that are accredited by the Civil Service Commission but do not have civil service status will be offered modernised terms and will not have continuous service recognised for leave or sickness benefits. Salaries should be offered at band minimum, but there is some flexibility where this would cause a detriment to the individual.

Bodies that are accredited by the Civil Service Commission and do have Civil Service status will be treated as OGD transfers. Staff appointed on lateral transfer will move on to pre-modernised DfE terms (unless they were on modernised terms in their previous organisation). Staff appointed on promotion will move on to modernised DfE terms. Staff will transfer over on their existing salary (on lateral transfer) and any pay above the DfE pay band maximum will be paid as a mark time allowance. Staff moving on promotion will have their salaries calculated using the principles set out in the attached OGD transfer supplementary information.

Reasonable adjustment
If a Person With Disabilities Is Put At a Substantial Disadvantage Compared To a Non-disabled Person, We Have a Duty To Make Reasonable Changes To Our Processes. If You Need a Change To Be Made So That You Can Make Your Application, You Should

Contact Department of Education via soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the "Assistance required" section in the "Additional requirements" page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Please refer to the attached 'Reasonable Adjustments Guide 05_2025 – accessible version' at the bottom of the advert, for further information.

Childcare Vouchers
Any move to Department for Education (DfE) will mean you will no longer be able to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job Contact

• Name : Maia Williams
• Email :

Recruitment team

• Email :

Further information

The Department for Education's recruitment processes are underpinned by the Civil Service Commissioners Recruitment Principles, which outlines that selection for appointment is made on merit based on fair and open competition. You have the right to complain if you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly with the department concerned via If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages