CRM Manager (Internal Applications Only)

Role: CRM Manager

Location: UK, London

Job type: Full time, permanent – hybrid

This position offers a hybrid work model, allowing flexibility between working from home and our office. Typically, employees are expected to work 2 days in the office per week.

Why QS?

At QS, we believe that work should empower you. That’s why we foster a flexible working environment that encourages every employee to own their career whilst flourishing personally and professionally.

Our commitment to people development is recognised globally: QS is a Gold-accredited Investors in People organisation, placing us among the top 28% of workplaces worldwide. Our company values underpin everything we do – we collaborate, respect and support each other.

It’s our mission to empower motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential through higher education, ensuring that everyone has access to opportunities that change lives.

Our diversity makes us stronger. By sharing our experiences, we learn from one another and achieve more together, driving progress across the sector.

At QS, you’ll be responsible for implementing real change in the international higher education landscape. You’ll take on meaningful challenges that see a positive impact across the business and the wider sector.

We’re confident you’ll feel right at home here. QS was named as one of Newsweek’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® in the UK (October 2023), recognising the respect, trust and appreciation that drive our culture every day.

QS University Services

Universities partner with QS University Services to support a range of strategic objectives, including:

• Increasing student enrolment volumes
• Improving conversion rates across the student journey
• Enhancing the pre-enrolment experience and overall student satisfaction
• Expanding reach and diversifying recruitment across priority markets

QS delivers a white-labelled, end-to-end conversion service, combining personalised 1:1 engagement with scaled, data-driven marketing activity. Within this model:

• Student Success teams deliver personalised, one-to-one engagement at key decision points
• Digital Outreach is responsible for all one-to-many communications, including campaigns, automation, and digital engagement at scale

Both teams depend on a single, reliable data foundation to do this well. Today, that foundation — our HubSpot CRM platform, and the data operations that sit around it — carries risk that has not yet been consolidated under one accountable owner, and tolerance for manual handling and error needs to reduce as the business scales.

As part of a broader transformation, QS is evolving its CRM and data operations capability to become a proactive, governed, and outcomes-focused function. The ambition is to give Student Success and Digital Outreach a platform they can rely on without question, so that both teams can focus on what they do best rather than on data risk.

The CRM Manager will play a central role in this transformation. Their first priority will be to define and deliver a clear plan to stabilise, govern and optimise our HubSpot data foundations, ensuring the platform is positioned to support improved engagement, conversion and enrolment outcomes.

As a CRM Manager, this is what you’ll be doing:

The CRM Manager leads the strategic governance of our HubSpot CRM and oversees platform and data operations as the single point of accountability for how data, operations and the platform intersect to support improved customer outcomes for our University Services partners and clients This role exists to close a real gap: today, data operations knowledge and risk sit informally across individuals rather than with one accountable owner and without a clear governing framework.

The CRM Manager takes on that accountability directly — owning the platform, embedding on-going training across service delivery teams, coordinating the teams that depend on it, and reducing the business's tolerance for manual handling and error as we scale.

Role responsibilities

CRM Governance

• Provide strategic governance of the CRM platform, championing initiatives that improve service delivery, streamline operations, and enable more effective, data -driven ways of working across University Services teams.
• Own HubSpot platform governance end-to-end, including data model design, workflow management and data integrity.

Operational Excellence

• Lead cross-team coordination between Tech, Operations, Reporting and Data for all HubSpot-related work, ensuring changes are planned and communicated with relevant stakeholders.
• Manage day-to-day HubSpot administration and issue resolution, acting as the first and final point of escalation for platform problems.
• Act as the practical link between teams that depend on clean, reliable data — effectively, everyone the CRM touches — and the platform itself

Data Quality & Privacy

• Set and maintain data ingestion standards and HubSpot data workflows, reducing manual handling and the risk that comes with it.
• Own reconciliation workflows and QA processes, catching data issues before they reach downstream teams or client-facing reporting.
• Define, own and evolve the to-be operating model for the data ingestion function, ensuring it is fit for purpose for HubSpot and aligned to wider business and operational needs.
• Work with Business Analysts to map data use cases and align data ingestion processes to support downstream processes.

Change & Enablement

• Lead change management, adoption and enablement for HubSpot across the business — training, documentation and rollout of new workflows or features.

Business Improvement & Innovation

• Work with Business Analysts and the Head of Product to design and implement platform improvements to support the achievement of business objectives.

Any other duties that fall within the purpose and scope of the role.

Key skills and experience

• Significant experience in CRM, data operations, or platform management, including strong experience managing a team or function with direct accountability for outcomes
• Demonstrated expertise in CRM governance, ensuring platforms, processes, and data structures support organisational objectives, regulatory requirements, and scalable service delivery
• Strong understanding of data governance principles, including data quality, stewardship, ownership, lifecycle management, and the controls required to maintain trusted and reliable data assets.
• Experience implementing and managing privacy-by-design practices, with an understanding of data protection, consent management, compliance obligations, and associated operational risks.
• Interest in emerging AI capabilities within CRM and customer operations environments, with capability to apply responsible AI principles and assess opportunities, risks, governance requirements, and business value.
• Degree in a numerate or technical discipline (e.g. data, computer science, business information systems), or equivalent demonstrable experience
• Experience working within complex, high-volume data operations — higher education, EdTech, SaaS, or another regulated/data-governance-sensitive industry
• Deep understanding of complex data structures and use cases, and how they map onto CRM platforms in practice.
• Strong track record in workflow and data-model design
• Exceptional attention to detail and problem-solving capability — comfortable being the person who catches what others miss.
• Practical CRM expertise, specifically an understanding of how data, operations and platform decisions intersect, rather than purely technical or purely operational experience in isolation.
• Experience leading or coordinating a team, with the judgement to manage risk and escalate appropriately
• Comfortable operating as a single point of accountability — confident making and owning platform decisions that affect multiple teams.
• Experience with HubSpot CRM is highly desirable but not a strict requirement if the underlying data/CRM platform expertise is deep.
  
  

Personal attributes

• Innate sense of risk — instinctively cautious, quick to spot where a decision now could cause disproportionate harm later
• Proactive, solutions-oriented, and outcomes-driven
• Data-led, with a focus on measurable impact
• Collaborative, with the ability to work cross-functionally and globally
• Adaptable and comfortable leading through transformation

• Curious, engaged and eager to learn
• Professional, reliable and culturally aware
  
  

So, who are we and what do we do?

QS is the world leader in higher education services, analytics, insights and intelligence. From consultancy to student mobility, academic partnerships to branding solutions, our services power both institutional and individual success.

We’re behind the world’s most widely read university rankings. With an 85% share of all Google searches for university rankings, the QS World University Rankings® reach hundreds of millions, shaping decisions and guiding futures.

Since launching in 1990, our impact and influence have only grown. Today, we work with more than 2,000 of the world’s leading higher education institutions, over 12,000 employers, and governments seeking change and socioeconomic development through higher education – while helping more than 75,000 students enrol each year.

Join QS and you’ll join an 800-strong community of problem-solvers, creators, collaborators and change-makers based in 40+ countries and 11
international offices, including Australia, Malaysia, India, Romania, Singapore, France, Germany, the USA and our headquarters in London.

With every talented new hire, business acquisition and bold initiative, we’re strengthening our reach and delivering even greater value to institutions and learners worldwide. Are you ready to shape the future of higher education?

We take investing in our people very seriously.

As standard you will have:

• Competitive base salary
• Access to an annual bonus scheme (for qualifying roles only)
• 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays – increasing to 27 days after 5 years’
• Access to a Buy Holiday scheme allowing you to buy up to 5 additional holiday days per year
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave
• Generous pension through Royal London
• Comprehensive private medical insurance and wellness scheme through Vitality
• Cycle to work scheme
• A vibrant social environment and multicultural and multinational culture
  
  

But that’s not all. Outside of these standard benefits we also offer resources to allow professional growth and wellness initiatives to nurture a healthy mindset:

• Free subscription to the Calm App – the #1 app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation
• A focus on welfare which is led by our global wellness team, with mental health first aiders globally
• Access to a variety of diversity and inclusion initiatives and groups
• Strong recognition and reward programs – including a peer-to-peer recognition platform, quarterly and annual QS Applaud Awards, Connect with your Career annual PD event
• Support for volunteering and study leave
• Free subscription to LinkedIn learning – with over 5000 courses and programmes at your fingertips
• Options to join our outstanding global Mentorship programme
  
  

Like what you’ve heard? Great, apply now!

As a candidate, we know the application and interview process can be daunting and so it’s important that you have a great experience with us. Our dedicated Talent Team will work hard to ensure you are fully informed at all stages, and you are really excited by this opportunity to do meaningful work in the education space.

Equal opportunities

QS Quacquarelli Symonds is proud to be a fair and equal organisation where everyone has the same opportunity to achieve their full potential, irrespective of their background or personal attributes. We celebrate our diversity and believe through sharing our experiences we can learn from one another, be stronger together, and enable our business to thrive.