Executive Assistant – 7122 Full Time NEW

Salary: £26,600 – £32,600 plus benefits 

Location: Cambridge, UK – Hybrid

Contract: Fixed Term/Secondment (12 months) 

Hours: Full time, 35 hours per week

Are you an experienced Executive Assistant who thrives on working at the heart of a senior leadership team, enabling leaders to focus on strategic impact?

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge. 

Partnership for Education and Education Futures has an exciting opportunity for an Executive Assistant to provide high‑quality, personalised support to the Managing Director and selected members of the senior leadership team.

About The Role  

This is a pivotal, trusted role providing proactive executive support in a complex, fast‑paced environment. You will enable effective leadership by managing intricate diaries, coordinating high‑level internal and external meetings, and anticipating priorities to ensure the smooth running of Partnership for Education and Education Futures strategic activity.

Working closely with senior leaders, partners and stakeholders, you will play a key role in facilitating executive engagement, supporting governance and communications activity, and maintaining high standards of organisation, confidentiality and professionalism.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities include:

• Providing proactive, high‑quality and personalised executive support to the Managing Director, including complex diary management, inbox management and correspondence handling.
• Coordinating and delivering executive‑level meetings, workshops and events, ensuring agendas, papers, briefings, minutes and follow‑up actions are produced to a consistently high standard.
• Supporting leadership meetings across the Partnership, including SLT/SMT, advisory boards and key external partner meetings, acting as a trusted point of coordination.
• Managing complex travel arrangements and expenses accurately and in a timely manner, ensuring compliance with organisational policies.
• Producing high‑quality briefing materials, reports and presentations to support executive decision‑making.
• Supporting internal communications and engagement activity, including leadership updates and newsletters.
• Coordinating onboarding and offboarding activity for colleagues within the Partnership, ensuring a smooth and professional experience.
• Maintaining systems, SharePoint pages, databases and records to ensure information is accurate, up to date and accessible.
• Handling sensitive and confidential information with discretion, exercising sound judgement and maintaining high standards of confidentiality at all times.

This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face-to-face in Cambridge. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long-term health condition. 

About You  

To be successful in this role, you will bring proven experience of supporting senior leaders and a calm, organised approach to managing competing priorities.

Minimum Requirements

• Proven experience working as a Personal or Executive Assistant to senior‑level leaders or providing high‑level administrative support to a leadership team.
• Excellent organisational and time‑management skills, with the ability to proactively prioritise and manage a varied workload.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a professional and confident style.
• High attention to detail and accuracy, with a commitment to delivering work to a high standard.
• Confidence using Microsoft 365, particularly Copilot, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
• A discreet, trustworthy approach with the ability to handle sensitive information appropriately.

If you meet the above minimum requirements, we encourage you to apply. Your application will be even stronger if you can also demonstrate the following desirable criteria: 

• PA or Executive Assistant qualification or certification.
• Experience supporting complex meetings, boards or external stakeholders.

For a detailed job description, please refer to the link at the bottom of the advert on our careers site.

We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme’s Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long-term health condition, and who best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable and/or appropriate, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long-term health condition. 

Please note, Cambridge University Press & Assessment is unable to sponsor this role under the Skilled Worker Visa route as it does not meet the minimum skill requirements. 

Rewards And Benefits  

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including: 

28 days annual leave plus bank holidays 

Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance  

Discretionary annual bonus  

Group personal pension scheme 

Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary  

Green travel schemes  

Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.

We aim to support candidates by making our interview process clear and transparent. The closing date for all applications will be  8th May 2026. We will review applications on an ongoing basis, and shortlisted candidates can expect interviews to take place from  21st May 2026.

If you are shortlisted and progressed through the stages, you can expect: 

• First stage virtual interview via MS Teams. 
• Final stage interview: in-person at our offices in Cambridge.

If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process due to a disability or a long-term health condition, there will be an opportunity for you to inform us via the online application form. We will do our best to accommodate your needs. 

Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.

We are committed to an equitable recruitment process. As such, applications must be submitted via our official online application procedure. Please refrain from sending your CV directly to our recruiters. If you experience technical difficulties or require additional support with submitting your online application, contact the Recruiter. 

Why join us 

Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You will belong to a collaborative team that is exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe – for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it is safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background. 

We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.