Head of Presales

Job Details

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

Jisc grade: PRS
4.

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.

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.

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.

• 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

• 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…