Licensing Manager

Location: Hybrid - flexibility to work from home or at any of our main hubs (London, Bristol, Manchester and Milton Park - Oxfordshire) 

Jisc is the UK digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research, and innovation. We are a not-for-profit organisation with a big ambition to improve lives through education and research by providing hardware, software, and networking solutions. 

Join us and your contribution will help us to empower UK universities, colleges, research institutions and wider customers with technology so that everyone prospers. 

About the role:

In Jisc Licensing, our mission is to enable digital transformation by brokering and negotiating the best solutions for, and with, the research and education sectors. We aim to empower our members with the services, the insights, the software, tools and content to realise their research, teaching and learning and organisational ambitions. 

We are growing our Licensing team, and we have a number of Licensing Manager vacancies in the Corporate Information Systems (CIS), and Research portfolios.

You will be working in the forefront of digital innovation and technologies, and you will be responsible for identifying and negotiating the best agreements for our members and customers that allow institutions to operate sustainably, securely and with flexibility. 

Through your well-honed negotiation and advocacy skillset, you will work alongside our sector groups, funders, members and customers, to understand and translate their requirements into highly effective agreements, in order to advance digital transformation. 

Key Skills and Experience:

• Strong advocacy and negotiation skills – can formulate compelling arguments and adapt these to different audiences, demonstrates flexibility and creativity to reach agreement.
• Ability to think tactically, anticipate and respond to a range of outcomes and identification and mitigation of risks. Translation of technical, systems, legal or commercial requirements into compelling submissions to vendors.
• Knowledge of the research process, institutional central information systems and relevant markets.
• Advanced data and financial analysis.
• Leading projects and contract negotiations to successful conclusion.
• Negotiating high value or complex agreements including the creation of counter proposals and analysis of complex financial proposals.
• Has provided briefings and presentations to senior level stakeholders. Ability to explain complex concepts and to tailor these to a variety of different audiences.
• We are especially keen for you to highlight any prior experience in managing software portfolios, holding IT positions within the Higher Education or Further Education sectors in the UKRI region, and working with procurement bodies or software resellers. 

Please refer to the job description for full details. 

Don’t meet every single requirement?

We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can’t tick every box but we realise the ‘perfect candidate’ doesn’t exist. So, if you can do most of what we’re looking for, go ahead and apply. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles!

Why work at Jisc:

At Jisc, everyone plays a key role and gets the chance to feel part of it, that to us is the definition of a meaningful career. We want to create a culture of lifelong learning. You can look forward to a rewarding job with opportunities to develop and make a real difference to the education and research sectors. 

We believe a balance between your personal and professional life is essential to your happiness and fulfilment. We work flexibly at Jisc and focus on outputs rather than presenteeism and are open to a whole range of ways of working. It isn’t about how many hours you spend at home or at work; it’s about the flow you establish that brings energy to both parts of your life. Our hybrid working policy is flexible, and the frequency of time spent in your nominated office will vary across teams and jobroles. 

Our benefits are great too. We offer:

• Flexible work pattern, which can adapt to suit your schedules and personal commitments
• 31 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) that includes an additional three closure days over Christmas
• A generous pension scheme
• A range of leave options, including parental leave, 3 days volunteer leave per annum and even career breaks.
• A generous budget to support you with external learning and Continuous professional development
• Allocated allowance of up to £250 to equip your home office
• A company culture which supports and promotes personal learning and development, including access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning
• Mental health first aid trained staff and supportive environment,
• Financial well-being support
• The opportunity to donate to charity tax-free with our Payroll Giving benefit
• A wide range of discounts from retailers and big-name high-street stores
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee recognition awards and travel loans
• Additional Flexible benefits include Holiday Buying - Purchase 1-5 days’ additional holiday per annum, Healthcare Cashplan, Electric Car Lease Scheme and option to purchase SmartTech 

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We celebrate diversity, embrace our differences, through our culture and employee networks and know that this is critical for our success. We work hard to make sure we’re inclusive and we are committed to furthering our culture of inclusion. Striving to be best in practice, we are working hard to achieve progressive change. ‘Always inclusive’ is one of our six guiding principles - a principle which actively encourages acceptance of differences within individuals.   

We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, class, citizenship, marital status, disability, neurodivergence, trans status, veteran status, or gender identity.  

Application process:

Please do let us know what reasonable adjustments you need made to the application or selection process so you can do your best. We will be happy to help you.

Just so you know, we review CVs as soon as we can and aim to provide an update on your application within 4 weeks of receiving it.  However, you may hear from us a lot sooner, so please keep an eye out for our emails or calls! 

We advertised this role on 04/04/24.