Specialist, Education Specialist
Pearson · Manchester
Specialist, Education Specialist - this role aligns to industry-level titles such as Assessment Data Analyst.
Business unit / team: Pearson School Qualifications – Assessment
Location: Manchester or London, with hybrid working and occasional travel between Pearson offices as required.
Contract type: Permanent, full‑time
PURPOSE
The purpose of the Specialist, Education Specialist (Assessment Data Analyst) role is to support assessment quality, innovation and operational effectiveness through timely, accurate and insightful analysis of assessment data. The role enables evidence-based decision-making across assessment operations by providing analytical support during live series and post-series activity, identifying risks, trends and improvement opportunities. This is delivered through the development and continuous improvement of scalable data products and insight reporting that maximises the value of assessment data for stakeholders.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Deliver timely quality-assurance reporting for assessment creation, marking quality, grading and awarding, post-results activity, and customer/competitor insights, ensuring issues are identified, documented and routed to the appropriate owners.
Provide accurate and insightful analysis to PSQ stakeholders to support operational decision-making, including rapid-turnaround analysis during live series and deeper post-series evaluation.
Interrogate a broad range of assessment datasets to identify trends, anomalies, and risks/opportunities; produce clear findings, root-cause hypotheses and recommended actions for review and decision.
Maintain up-to-date knowledge of assessment processes, products and stakeholders, and apply this understanding to interpret data correctly, anticipate operational impacts, and tailor insights to audience needs.
Design, build, document and maintain dashboards, reports and analytical outputs, including defining metrics, assuring data quality, and implementing improvements based on user feedback.
Partner with stakeholders to capture business questions and reporting requirements; translate these into clear analytical approaches (e.g., definitions, data sources, logic, validation) and deliver fit-for-purpose outputs to agreed timelines.
Act on insight by escalating risks and exceptions through agreed governance routes, proposing interventions, and tracking outcomes to support continuous improvement and auditability.
Use appropriate analytical tools (e.g., Excel, SQL, Tableau) to extract, transform, validate and analyse complex datasets, creating efficient, automated and well-controlled analytical processes.
Promote data literacy across assessment teams by providing guidance on interpretation of dashboards/metrics, defining standards for reporting and documentation, and supporting stakeholders to use data confidently in decision-making.
SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:
ESSENTIAL:
Data analysis: able to explore and analyse assessment datasets using appropriate analytical techniques to draw defensible conclusions.
Problem solving: able to define the problem, form testable hypotheses, identify the right data, and validate results under time pressure.
Insight communication: able to translate analysis into clear narratives for non-technical audiences, including key messages, assumptions/limitations and recommended actions.
Data quality: able to apply robust validation and maintain high standards of accuracy, version control and documentation.
Technical capability: advanced Excel; SQL (BigQuery, MS SQL Server); Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep and Tableau Server.
Stakeholder management: able to gather requirements, agree definitions/metrics, and work collaboratively across teams to deliver to fixed assessment timelines.
DESIRABLE:
Automation/advanced analytics: working knowledge of Python or R for data manipulation and repeatable analysis; and/or Alteryx for building reproducible data workflows.
Assessment operations knowledge: understanding of end-to-end assessment delivery (e.g., question paper creation, marking, grading/awarding, post-results), and the key quality measures used to monitor performance.
Data protection and security: practical experience handling confidential/personal data in line with policies and controls (e.g., access management, secure storage/sharing, data minimisation and retention).
Experience in standardising data practices to ensure consistent documentation and sustainable analytical outputs.
Experience working in a high-stakes and heavily-regulated environment, ensuring compliance with both external and internal policies & procedures.
Your rewards & benefits
We know you’ll do great work, so we give a lot back with some of the best benefits in the business. We know one size doesn’t fit all, so our workplace programs meet the different needs of our diverse teams, and their families too.
Please see our attractive UK benefits here: Pearson Jobs – Benefits
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