Director of Apprenticeship Operations and Strategy

Director of Apprenticeship Operations and Strategy

Liverpool – hybrid.

Datalaw is a leading training provider for legal professionals and apprentices, it operates one of the most actively developed legal training and apprenticeship platforms in the United Kingdom. A new senior leadership role has been created to lead the strategic, regulatory, and transformational agenda of its apprenticeship business .

As part of the senior leadership team, this is a highly strategic role away from the day to day delivery and management.

Key responsibilities

Strategy and Growth

Set the medium-term strategic direction of the apprenticeship division in partnership with the MD.

Identify, scope, and lead the launch of new apprenticeship programmes covering viability, funding eligibility, staffing, tutor competency, curriculum, assessment, delivery model, onboarding, and profitability.

Develop a forward pipeline of provision that diversifies the business and reduces sector concentration risk.

Build a defensible growth plan that aligns commercial ambition with regulatory and operational capacity

Regulatory Leadership

Responsible for regulatory horizon-scanning across DFE, Ofsted, Skills England and awarding bodies. Translate change into operational, financial, and inspection impact assessments for the SLT and Board.

Lead preparation for inspection and audit cycles. Position the business ahead of the 2026 Ofsted framework and the August 2026 ESFA funding rule changes.

Provide written assurance to the MD that growth decisions, programme launches, and AI deployment remain demonstrably within ESFA funding rules and Ofsted quality expectations.

Data Modelling and Risk

Build and own scenario models covering achievement rates, retention, withdrawals, breaks in learning, timely completion, and funding sensitivity.

Stress-test the business under different regulatory, learner-volume, and funding scenarios. Surface forward risk rather than retrospective reporting.

Translate DFE (formally ESFA) Accountability Framework metrics into forward-looking management information for the SLT and Board.

Quantify the financial and operational impact of regulatory and qualification change before it lands.

AI and transformation Governance

Provide strategic oversight of the integration of Datalaw's AI training infrastructure into the apprenticeship business.

Lead the operational restructuring required to deploy AI-enabled delivery models — including delivery model review, quality assurance, evidencing, staff planning, and compliance monitoring.

Develop and own the governance framework that allows Datalaw to innovate ahead of the sector while remaining demonstrably compliant with DFE funding rules and Ofsted quality requirements.

Engage proactively with regulators and sector bodies on the use of AI in regulated training, helping shape sector norms rather than respond to them.

Senior Leadership

Contribute to Datalaw's senior leadership as a strategic peer. Provide challenge, alternative perspectives, and independent judgement on board-level decisions.

Partner with the Apprenticeship Director (Operations) on the boundary between strategic planning and operational delivery.

Mentor and develop emerging leadership capability within the apprenticeship business

Person Specification

You must have

Significant senior leadership experience in the apprenticeship sector, with direct accountability for strategy, growth, or transformation at director level.

Deep working knowledge of DFE/ESFA funding rules, the ESFA Accountability Framework, and the Ofsted Education Inspection Framework — including the 2026 revisions.

Demonstrable track record of launching, scaling, restructuring, or turning around apprenticeship provision.

Strong commercial judgement. Able to model risk and translate regulatory change into financial and operational impact.

Comfortable challenging at senior level. Strategic rather than operational by instinct.

Credible to inspectors, auditors, and awarding bodies

Desirable

Experience of integrating technology, automation, or AI into regulated training delivery.

Background spanning multiple apprenticeship sectors or qualification types.

Prior board-level experience or direct reporting line to a MD or Managing Director.

Sector network at senior level — Skills England, AELP, DFE/ESFA, Ofsted, awarding organisations.

What this role offers;

A genuinely strategic mandate. The role is built deliberately to sit above day-to-day delivery and to focus on the things senior operators in this sector rarely get protected time for.

Direct access to and influence over proprietary AI infrastructure with the capacity to reshape how apprenticeship training is produced and delivered. Few operators in the sector have this on their desk.

A capable senior team. The Apprenticeship Director owns delivery, freeing this role to focus on strategy, regulation, growth, and transformation.

A growing, commercially ambitious business with the appetite to invest in new provision and the agility to act on it.

A direct reporting line to the MD and a seat at the Senior Leadership Team.

The opportunity to shape sector practice on AI in regulated training at a moment when the regulatory position is still forming.