Head of Professional Qualifications - London

Ideas | People | Trust

We’re BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions businesses need to navigate today’s changing world.

Our biggest asset is our people, so our HR team focus on ensuring we are all reaching our potential. They use their specialist expertise to help us attract great talent, enable our employees to succeed and inspire a unified culture of development across our firm. By playing a role in the recruitment and management of our people, they help change lives and influence the future of BDO. Join a driven and passionate team where you can be yourself, while also helping your colleagues to achieve their ambitions.

We’ll broaden your horizons

The Professional Qualifications Team (PQT) report to the Director of Learning and have a distinct role dealing with the strategic management of the trainee professional qualification journey. Whilst the team manage a range of professional qualifications, Level 7 Apprenticeships, ICAEW, ACA and ICAS qualifications and the exams of the tax professional bodies are the routes most commonly followed by our people.

The Head of PQ will work closely with key business stakeholders, HR and Finance in the defining and delivery of the firm’s professional qualifications strategy and objectives to ensure an aligned and commercial approach contributing to the firm’s growth plan. This role will also work closely with the firm’s Quality and Risk Partner, who is also our Qualified Person Responsible for Training (QPRT). Our QPRT is responsible for ensuring that we apply our policies consistently across the firm, and the streams within, therefore it will be key that the Head of PQ collaborates and effectively engages with the QPRT to agree final sign off on all policy decisions relating to trainees.

This role will evolve, re-energise, re-focus and further develop the firm’s Professional Qualification offering for the benefit of everyone in the firm, whilst ensuring operational excellence and a focus on Quality across everything we do.

Tasked with carrying out a strategic review of our Professional Qualifications offering, the individual will look at best practice in the marketplace. With a core focus on the effective support and retention of our trainee population, this role leads our Professional Qualifications team in being at the heart of our drive for sustainable growth.

In this key role you’ll also:

• To identify, build, and foster on-going strong collaborative business relationships to understand the people and business goals for the firm
• Lead a team to drive operational excellence, ensure an appropriate level of care to our trainees, and fulfill delivery requirements.
• Development of procedures and processes, in collaboration with the QPRT, to drive efficiencies in the work of the team. Helping to ensure that the firm’s professional qualifications policies are driven by business needs and sound commercial principles and working with the business to support as appropriate.
• Strong communication skills, demonstrating clear ability to lead, influence and have impact with credibility to a range of internal and external audiences
• Be a role model, demonstrate abilities to adapt your style to deliver to various audiences, and enable others to articulate complex issues
• Drive creative thinking and connect ideas & insights from other industries and leading learning establishments
• Continuously define and refine the appropriate learning & development support required, across the trainee population ensuring the appropriate level of consistency, quality and regulatory requirements are met across all streams and regions
• Be instrumental in working with key stakeholders to develop and foster an environment that both inspires and motivates our trainee population to feel driven in their chosen career path, whilst maximising retention as they roll off into role at the end of their training.
• Collaborating in the design and development of apprenticeship programmes that are relevant, engaging and delivering for our EIC students.
• Leading the team on building and maintaining effective external partnerships with key training providers and professional bodies such as the ICAEW

We’ll help you succeed

When you join us, we’ll make your growth our priority. If you can demonstrate the following skills, we can help you go far. We’re looking for someone with:

• Strong experience of working in a complex organisation as a Head of Professional Qualifications or equivalent - professional services or finance preferred
• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to interpret MI, make recommendations and deliver appropriate solutions
• Experience of leading learning teams in both strategic and operational activities.
• Significant experience in dealing with and influencing senior leadership stakeholders.
• Proven experience in investigating the impact of potential changes in the current market on the organisation’s professional qualifications strategies.
• Proven ability in adopting and driving a continuous improvement approach to working practices
• Strong communication skills, demonstrating clear ability to influence and have impact with credibility
• Proven ability in gaining confidence of partners and peers and building strong relationships with colleagues and external bodies.
• Knowledge of professional qualifications such as Level 7 ACA apprenticeship, CFAB, ACCA and CIMA is essential

We’re in it together

At BDO, we believe that when our people feel valued and rewarded, their potential is unlimited. We offer highly competitive starting salaries and review remuneration packages regularly to ensure that our pay always positively reflects performance. As well offering support with tuition and professional qualifications, we also provide the following benefits, as standard:

• 28 days’ holiday;
• Private Medical Insurance
• Cash allowance
• access to a personal pension scheme, with matched employer contributions;
• life assurance cover;
• income protection insurance.

That’s not all. We understand that everyone is different so, we offer a range of voluntary benefits to suit every lifestyle. Our flexible benefits platform, Flexcel, means our people can choose from a range of tax efficient options to design a benefit package that best suits them. Through Flexcel, they can:

• buy up to ten days’ extra holiday;
• add on private medical, personal accident, dental insurance or travel insurance;
• enrol in our Bike to Work scheme;
• enjoy discounts off cinemas, dining, and gyms;
• receive an interest free season ticket loan or interest free graduate loan;
• access childcare vouchers;
• take an online health assessment and utilise our employee assistance programme.

We’re looking forward to the future

At BDO, we’re big enough to make the difference and collaborative enough to never lose sight of where we’re going. We know that it’s our people that make our success possible. Across our 17 UK locations, more than 6,000 of them work together to provide tax, audit, assurance and a range of advisory services that help our clients achieve their ambitious goals. Together, they’re fuelling Britain’s economic engine. Behind every complex client challenge and every untapped innovation, they’re there: ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. That’s why we’re always looking for ways to invest in our people. That means providing them with an environment where they can grow, learn, laugh and feel respected, at all times.

Are you ready to join them?

For further information, and to apply, please visit our website via the “Apply” button below.