Seven months on: what’s changed?

The table below shares an overview of changes in emphasis between March and October 2026.

The standout observation is that the October sample feels more delivery-orientated than the March one (though this may be skewed by the lack of an Executive Team post in the sample). The language of project management, KPIs, monitoring, reporting, governance and implementation recurs across different categories of job.

So what other themes are in evidence?

TNE and partnerships: specialist expertise to manage the whole lifecycle

Unsurprisingly, there are several jobs with a strong TNE dimension. What’s interesting is that these are not business development roles focused mainly on establishing TNE partnerships. The emphasis is on managing the entire partnership lifecycle.

Jobs include a Faculty International Development Manager at Durham (£39-46K), a Senior Quality Officer (International) at Canterbury Christ Church (£36-38K), and a Project Officer (International Programmes) at Manchester (£38-46K).

The ads demonstrate attention to the infrastructure required to deliver and sustain TNE and the specialist expertise needed in quality assurance, governance, financial sustainability and programme delivery.

In addition, there are several Partnerships / Programme Manager style roles with an emphasis on high-value collaborations, including research and industry initiatives. These require skills like negotiating agreements, managing budgets, monitoring performance, building capacity and reporting against milestones.

The roles reflect the need for professional staff who can translate complex partnerships into measurable outcomes.

International recruitment: extracting value from existing activity

While some international recruitment-focused roles appear to fit a well-established mould (e.g. Surrey’s International Student Recruitment Officer (Middle East & Africa) (£32-37K)), others are more strategically and commercially orientated, with a particular emphasis on agent oversight. For example, Southampton was recruiting for an Agent and EdTech Coordinator (£31-36K) to help formalise the operational management of agents and EdTech partners.

An Anderson Quigley ad for a senior interim recruitment role sets out a quite specific challenge: ‘Demand from China is expected to fall, so plans need resizing while the existing pipeline is protected. Most… other main markets are growing, and there’s real scope to diversify. The first priority is the January to July conversion window, and one question: where do we make the difference?’.

The general focus appears to be on extracting value from existing recruitment activity, rather than pursuing an expansion / growth agenda.

Global opportunities rising up the agenda

Several roles (notably at Bournemouth, Brunel and Worcester) include substantial responsibility for outward and inward student mobility and international experiences. While this is not particularly surprising, given the UK’s reassociation with Erasmus+, the remits are all much broader than Erasmus Coordinator roles of the past. Salaries range from £26K to £49K.

At a time when there’s huge focus on both TNE and international student recruitment as sources of income, it’s refreshing to see universities also investing in outward mobility and global opportunities.

Embedding international expertise across the institution

Building on a theme that was evident in March, the ads include many international roles that are located outside International Offices. Examples include roles in a Faculty Teaching, Learning and Student Experience team; a Quality Assurance and Enhancement team; a research hub; and Student Services.

This suggests continued emphasis on embedding international expertise where it can most directly support institutional strategy and objectives.

Concluding thoughts

I’m hesitant to draw any definitive conclusions from my snapshot exercise – and changes between March and October may partly be attributable to the time of year in any case. But I get the sense from the roles being advertised that universities are particularly concerned with how internationalisation is delivered (not just what they want it to achieve).

Several roles demand a wide-ranging combination of commercial, operational, analytical and relationship management skills. This likely reflects increasing operational sophistication. However, it may also be symptomatic of stretched institutions under pressure to deliver more with less.

Questions

As always, I’d be fascinated to hear what others have experienced or observed.

If you’ve been through a recruitment process recently, did anything feel noticeably different compared to previous experiences?

If you’re recruiting at the moment, are there particular gaps in expertise you’re seeking to fill? If the need to do more with less is affecting your approach to recruitment, what does this look like?

And if you’re a sector observer, like me, what signals have you picked up?

Tags/Keywords

INTERNATIONAL HE JOBS TRANSNATIONAL EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE DELIVERY

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