Product Manager - English

About the Role

The Product Manager will lead on strategy for Secondary English, drawing on research, in-depth customer knowledge and data to produce market-leading propositions (print and digital) in line with the product strategy for Secondary and the overarching ED-UK strategy. The Product Manager will be accountable for the commercial success of products and for driving profitable growth in relevant market segments. In addition, the Product Manager will maintain a deep and up-to-date customer understanding to anticipate future market trends and needs (short, medium and long term), identifying opportunities for creativity and innovation to support designated product strategy. They will champion products internally and ensure clear positioning and strong engagement across stakeholders, while managing budgets, timelines and performance to maximise success. The Product Manager will support ED-UK initiatives to increase revenue, market share and profitability and create new revenue streams.

Duties of the role will include:

• Maintain a good knowledge of the Secondary market, customer needs and competitive landscape
• Monitor the performance and development of designated brands/series/products, identifying challenges, opportunities, and required refinements, and managing improvements across the full product lifecycle in collaboration with sales and marketing
• Work with editorial and product delivery colleagues to determine best resourcing options and workflows on new projects
• Build and maintain strong relationships with authors, experts, freelancers and other suppliers
• Contribute to the creation of budgets and project costings for designated series/products supported by the Head of Portfolio
• Lead the creation of clear product positioning and impactful marketing messages
• Manage project timelines, budgets and resources to ensure delivery on time and within budget
• Create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and collaboration through setting up effective project teams and meeting structures, and through daily effective communication with managers of other departments

This is a 6-month fixed term contract, with the possibility of extension.

We operate a hybrid working policy that requires a minimum of 2 days per week in the Oxford office.

About You

To be successful in this role, you will ideally have:

• A strong background in educational product development
• A deep understanding of the needs of Secondary teachers and learners
• A good understanding of the UK’s Secondary English curriculum and qualifications
• A track-record of delivering complex print and digital products that have driven share and profitable revenue growth
• Excellent presentation and proposal writing skills
• Excellent leadership, management, and influencing skills
• Understanding of learning trends and pedagogy
• A collaborative, creative and innovative mindset
• Experience of building effective relationships with partners, subject experts and authors

Benefits

We care about work/life balance here at OUP. With this in mind we offer 25 days’ holiday that rises with service, plus bank holidays and Christmas closure (3-days) and a 35-hour working week. We are open to discussing flexibility in respect to working patterns, dependent on role. We also have a great variety of active employee networks and societies.

We help make your money go further by contributing to your pension up to 12%, offering loans and savings schemes through our partnership with Salary Finance, in addition to travel to work schemes and access to a wide range of local discounts.

Please see our Rewards and Recognition page for more information.

We are committed to supporting diversity in our workforce, and ensuring an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. We seek to employ a workforce representative of the markets that we serve and encourage applications from all.