Head of Data (Hiring Immediately)

About us

At Up Learn, we’ve built one of the world’s most effective learning experiences by combining cognitive science, instructional theory, and artificial intelligence. Our mission is to give every learner the most effective path to success, and vision a world where every learner achieves more, faster, through adaptive, mastery-based learning.

We’re the market-leading platform for A Levels, with seven courses on offer and 1 in 3 A Level students using Up Learn. Over the next year, we’re launching GCSE Science and accelerating growth, expanding our impact to millions more students.

Our results speak for themselves: 97% of students who complete our courses achieve an A*/A, even those who started with lower grades. And a large-scale evaluation of Up Learn in schools found usage is associated with 9 months additional progress, with grade improvements across whole year groups.

And for every paying student, we provide a full scholarship to a student in need - ensuring high-quality education is accessible to all.

About the role

The Head of Data will be a key senior leader at Up Learn, responsible for leading and overseeing the entire Data function, and reporting into the CEO. This role requires a strategic and practical individual who can level up Data at Up Learn and deliver new Data capabilities as needed to achieve the company’s growth goals this year and beyond. You should be fluent in using AI and data to automate and re-engineer processes, and have the technical expertise to build data foundations in the right way to scale effectively long term. The Head of Data will set data strategy and own Data team OKRs, improve product analytics and use of KPIs across the company, improve learning metrics and impact evaluations, continue to build on our high quality data and analytics infrastructure, and lead a small high performing Data team.

What you’ll do in the first 12 months

Up Learn is scaling into GCSEs and using AI to accelerate course development and product capability. As Head of Data, you’ll run a high-leverage data function that helps us move faster, make better decisions, and maintain trust with schools and learners.

• Own the Data roadmap and deliver it: Set a clear quarterly plan aligned to our biggest company goals (GCSE expansion, impact evidence, responsible AI), and ship meaningful improvements every month with a small, AI-powered team.
• Strengthen use of measurement in product processes: Embed “instrumentation before shipping” so every major release launches with the right KPIs, tracking, dashboards, and alerts - enabling fast learning, quick diagnosis, and confident iteration.
• Level up our metric system and decision-making: Build on our use of KPIs so teams (and leadership) have an accurate view of performance across Product, Commercial, and Operations.
• Lead our next ‘Measuring Learning’ impact evaluation: Design and run a credible evaluation of learning impact, and translate findings into clear product/content priorities and school-ready evidence.
• Own responsible AI for learner data: Put in place pragmatic governance and monitoring for AI features that touch learner responses and scoring - so we can innovate and keep trust high.
• Take ownership of data privacy & school assurance: Become our day-to-day lead for data privacy and school-facing data assurance - supporting data sharing agreements and DPIAs, and ensuring our practices around children’s data are robust and consistently applied.
• Improve GTM and business insight: Build clearer visibility into funnel performance and ROI (channel → conversion → retention) so we can double down on what works and stop what doesn’t.
• Build a high-performance, pragmatic team: Coach and develop our data team, raise quality where it matters, and keep our warehouse/dbt/Lightdash stack reliable and scalable - without slowing the business down.

Requirements

You should have:

• Hands-on experience working on data modelling and analytics engineering using the dbt ecosystem
• Experience owning a data roadmap and delivering meaningful outcomes for an organisation that’s growing
• Strong product analytics capability: defining KPIs, measuring feature impact, and embedding measurement into product development
• Experience designing or leading statistical tests or experiments, understanding different methodologies, ideally with experience of evaluation/impact measurement
• Practical experience implementing data governance: accurate/consistent metrics, access controls, retention, auditing, and privacy-by-design
• Strong ability to interact cross-functionally, getting into the detail of the different departments, their needs, and points of view
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