Head of Presales

Job Details

Salary range: c£65,000 per annum negotiable depending on experience.

Jisc grade: PRS4.

Job Type: Permanent.

Hours: 35 hours per week.

Reports into: Director of Presales, Professional Services and Delivery.

Working style: Hybrid – A blend of working from home and your nominated hub office. Hubs located in London, Bristol, Manchester and Oxford.

About Jisc

For 30 years Jisc has pioneered digital solutions for UK education and research, transforming how knowledge is created, shared and used. We are uniquely positioned to protect, promote and lead the sector in digital and data transformation, making a difference to students, communities and society. Together, we are working to build a better digital future for education and research. Raise your potential at Jisc through our culture of lifelong learning. At Jisc, we’re all about growth, so embrace new challenges, sharpen your skills and shape a career that excites you.

The role

Head of Presales – Shape Solutions. Lead with Impact. Deliver Outcomes.

We’re looking for a collaborative, forward‑thinking Head of Presales to lead and evolve our presales function—someone who is as comfortable guiding strategy as they are supporting teams and contributing hands‑on.

This role is central to how we create meaningful customer experiences. You’ll bring people together across Sales, Product, Delivery, and Onboarding to shape thoughtful, outcomes‑led solutions and ensure a smooth journey from first conversation through to mobilisation. Your work will help ensure every solution is not only compelling, but practical, deliverable, and set up for long‑term success.

You will bring clarity, raise standards, and align teams around practical, outcome‑focused solutions. You will ensure a seamless customer experience from first engagement with robust qualification and delivery‑ready handovers that minimise risk. Through clear communication, high standards and a focus on continuous improvement, you translate complexity into confident decisions while building a high‑performing, accountable team.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead the Presales function, driving a supportive, high‑performing team culture
• Work closely across teams to ensure solutions are customer‑focused, realistic, and aligned to measurable outcomes
• Guide your team to produce high quality, consistent, delivery‑ready outputs, with clear visibility of risks and decisions
• Strengthen and build collaboration with colleagues across Jisc, specifically in Sales, Product, Delivery, and Onboarding to improve experiences for both customers and colleagues
• Support and develop your team to adapt to the needs of the organisation, helping individuals grow their skills, confidence, and impact
• Drive continuous improvement, evolving processes in ways that make work clearer, smoother, and more effective
• Act as a trusted partner in key customer engagements, bringing both technical credibility and commercial understanding

Key Leadership Responsibilities

• Be a trusted escalation point for the Presales team, stepping into complex or high‑priority opportunities to support decision‑making, protect solution quality, and ensure strong commercial outcomes
• Review and guide high‑value or complex solutions, ensuring scope, assumptions, commercials, and delivery readiness are clear, realistic, and well‑aligned before progressing
• Support prioritisation across the pipeline, helping ensure the right expertise is focused where it adds the most value, especially on critical opportunities
• Lead regular deal reviews, creating a collaborative space for coaching, challenge, and shared learning across qualification, solution design, commercials, and risk
• Continuously improve ways of working, evolving templates, tools, and governance to support consistency, efficiency, and quality
• Work closely with the Director of Presales, Professional Services & Delivery as well as cross‑functional teams to ensure solutions are achievable and aligned with capacity, capability, and standards
• Use data and insight to guide decisions, monitoring pipeline health, conversion, and cycle times to identify opportunities for improvement
• Ensure smooth handovers into Delivery and Onboarding, with clear documentation, expectations, and success measures in place
• Encourage learning from experience, reviewing stalled or unsuccessful opportunities to identify themes and strengthen future approaches
• Build strong, positive relationships with internal teams and key customers, offering credibility and support in important engagements

What we are looking for

Experience

• Proven experience leading a Presales, solution consulting, or technical consulting team in a customer‑facing environment.
• Able to lead through difficult situations, including ownership of complaints, complex challenges and sensitive conversations, bringing sound judgement, professionalism and a calm approach to issue resolution.
• Demonstrable ability to deliver team transformation and continuous improvement (clarifying roles/standards, improving ways of working, and raising quality and pace).
• Strong data and performance management capability: defining metrics, creating dashboards, and using insight to prioritise action and track impact.
• Expertise in qualification, shaping customer requirements, and producing delivery‑ready scopes/proposals (assumptions, dependencies, risks, acceptance criteria).
• Experience operating a consistent “one door” approach and managing handoffs to delivery/onboarding teams to reduce rework and late‑stage surprises.

Core Behaviours and skills

• Strong governance mindset: able to run prioritisation, service levels, and expedite/escalation routes with clear decision rights and transparency.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills—able to translate technical detail into clear options and decisions for a range of audiences.
• Customer‑experience focus with evidence of improving satisfaction and outcomes through better expectation‑setting and more consistent engagement.
• Comfortable working cross‑functionally with sales, product and delivery teams, and able to handle competing priorities calmly and pragmatically.
• Takes ownership of their work, development, and priorities, managing time in a way that supports both personal effectiveness and team outcomes.
• Seeks out feedback and clarity, using it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and continuously improve.
• Communicates thoughtfully and clearly, adapting approach to different audiences and situations.
• Builds and supports high‑performing teams, creating clarity in expectations, sharing knowledge, and helping others develop with confidence.
• Encourages open, respectful dialogue, contributing to healthy debate and navigating challenges in a constructive way.
• Stays dependable and composed, even in fast‑moving or uncertain environments.
• Brings a positive, pragmatic mindset, focusing on solutions and helping others move forward.

Qualifications

• Desirable: certification/training in cloud, cyber security, service management, agile/lean improvement, or project/programme delivery.

Benefits

• Flexible work pattern, which can adapt to suit your schedules and personal commitments
• 31 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) that includes three closure days over Christmas
• Buy up to an additional 5 days leave during the flexible benefits window
• A range of wellbeing lifestyle benefits including company paid health care cash plan, mental health first aiders and support
• A company culture of continuous learning with access to thousands of LinkedIn Learning courses, and lots of resources and opportunities to support your development
• Allocated allowance of up to £250 to equip your home office
• Financial well‑being support including access to preferential loan and savings plans, mortgage advice, will writing tools and support and resources to help you make the most of your money
• A wide range of discounts and cashback from retailers and big‑name high‑street stores
• Family friendly policies including enhanced parental, maternity and paternity and co‑parental leave as well as opportunity for career breaks
• Support your volunteering with up to 3 days volunteer leave

Equity, diversity and inclusion

Jisc believes our people make all the difference in cultivating an inclusive culture that welcomes ideas, encourages innovation, and values belonging.

We work hard to create an equitable experience for our candidates and workforce which embraces all aspects of their identity including race and ethnicity, religion and belief, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, trans identities, age, class, disability, neurodivergence, or veteran status.

Sponsorship

Jisc has an active sponsor licence to recruit on a Skilled worker visa basis. Candidates wishing to apply who require sponsorship should determine the likelihood of obtaining a Certificate of Sponsorship for the role by assessing their circumstances against the relevant Home Office criteria. Jisc does not offer any financial reimbursement towards the applicant costs, such as relocation, skilled worker visa and dependant costs or the immigration health charge.

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