Advanced Specialist, Sales - Sales, Teachers, Educators & Sales Professionals Welcome

Advanced Specialist, Sales (Education Partnerships – Teachers & Educators Welcome)

Location: Home-based, with travel across the North East

Working pattern: Term-time, 205 days per year

About Pearson

At Pearson, our purpose is to help people make progress through learning. We work with schools, educators and learners to provide the products, services and support they need to achieve better outcomes.

Our mission is to partner with schools to support learner progression. Every student has their own individual learning journey, and alongside their teachers, Pearson helps schools make the choices that are right for their learners – whether progressing to Further or Higher Education, apprenticeships or directly into employment.

Your Opportunity

Are you an experienced sales professional with a passion for education? Or an educator looking for a new career where you can continue to make a difference to learners?

We're looking for someone who enjoys building trusted relationships, influencing decision-makers and helping schools achieve the best outcomes for their learners.

Whether you have experience in consultative sales, account management, business development or partnership management within the education sector, or you're an experienced teacher or education professional with strong relationship-building and influencing skills, we'd love to hear from you.

As an Advanced Specialist, Sales (Education Partnerships), you'll work with secondary schools and Multi-Academy Trusts across the North East, building relationships with senior leaders and influencing curriculum and purchasing decisions. You'll use your understanding of education, combined with your commercial and relationship-building skills, to identify opportunities, support customer retention and drive business growth.

This is a consultative sales role where understanding the challenges facing schools and being able to articulate the value of Pearson's products and services are key to success.

The role is home-based, with travel across the North East to meet customers and attend relevant events and meetings. It is a term-time role working 205 days per year.

A Day in the Life

Reporting to the Manager, Sales, you'll manage a defined group of strategic customer accounts, developing and delivering plans to retain and grow the business.

Your day-to-day activities will include:

• Building and maintaining strong relationships with senior leaders across secondary schools, Multi-Academy Trusts and other education groups.
• Developing account strategies to retain existing customers and identify opportunities for growth.
• Understanding customer priorities, challenges and learning strategies and using these insights to develop relevant solutions.
• Identifying and developing new sales opportunities across Pearson's qualifications, learning services and products.
• Leading consultative conversations with senior stakeholders and influencing curriculum and purchasing decisions.
• Delivering engaging sales presentations, customer meetings and regional senior leadership briefings.
• Working collaboratively with colleagues across the wider sales and business teams to deliver the best customer experience.
• Using Salesforce and other systems to manage customer interactions, opportunities and pipeline effectively.
• Identifying market trends, customer needs and opportunities to inform your sales strategy.
• Managing objections, negotiating solutions and progressing opportunities through to successful outcomes.
• Proactively identifying customer risks and opportunities and adapting your strategy accordingly.

What You'll Be Accountable For

Driving Growth

• Achieve annual revenue targets across your customer portfolio.
• Deliver year-on-year growth across qualifications, courseware and learning services.
• Build and maintain a healthy pipeline of opportunities.
• Generate new leads and convert opportunities across your region.
• Develop and implement effective account and regional strategies.
• Identify opportunities for customer retention, acquisition and expansion.
• Use market and customer insight to maximise opportunities and minimise risk.

Customer Relationships

• Build trusted, long-term relationships with senior leaders and key decision-makers.
• Develop a strong understanding of customer needs, priorities and challenges.
• Articulate the value of Pearson's products and services in a way that is relevant to each customer.
• Provide education and product expertise to support informed decision-making.
• Deliver professional, engaging presentations and customer meetings.
• Manage customer relationships throughout the sales cycle and support long-term retention.

Collaboration

• Work effectively with colleagues across the wider sales and business teams to deliver a joined-up customer experience.
• Share market insight, customer feedback and best practice with colleagues.
• Collaborate on regional sales strategies and initiatives.
• Build a strong internal network to support customer and commercial outcomes.

Personal Impact

• Take ownership of your regional strategy and customer portfolio.
• Be proactive in identifying opportunities and solving customer challenges.
• Demonstrate commercial awareness alongside a strong focus on customer needs.
• Adapt your approach in response to changes in the education market and customer priorities.
• Take ownership of your professional development and continuously develop your sales, education and product knowledge.

What We're Looking For

We're interested in people who can demonstrate strong relationship-building, influencing and commercial skills.

You may come from a range of backgrounds, including:

• Consultative B2B sales or account management.
• Business development or partnership management.
• Education sales or education services.
• Teaching or educational leadership combined with strong influencing and relationship-building skills.
• Other customer-facing or commercial roles where you've successfully influenced senior stakeholders and delivered measurable outcomes.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Experience building and managing relationships with customers or stakeholders.
• Strong communication, influencing and presentation skills.
• The ability to understand customer needs and translate these into appropriate solutions.
• A results-driven and commercially minded approach.
• Strong organisational and planning skills.
• The ability to manage a pipeline, prioritise opportunities and work towards targets.
• Confidence engaging with senior stakeholders and decision-makers.
• The ability to work independently while collaborating effectively within a wider team.
• A genuine interest in education and understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing schools.

Desirable

• Experience in consultative B2B sales, account management or partnership management.
• Experience working with schools, Multi-Academy Trusts or other education organisations.
• Experience selling complex products, services or solutions.
• Experience of working with qualifications, learning resources or education technology.
• Experience using Salesforce or other CRM systems.
• Teaching or educational leadership experience.

Don't have previous education sales experience? That's okay. If you have a strong track record of building relationships, influencing senior stakeholders and a genuine understanding of the education sector, we'd still love to hear from you.

Working Arrangements

This is a home-based role covering the North East, with regular travel to meet customers, attend meetings and support regional activity.

The role is term-time only, working 205 days per year, with flexibility in how you organise your working time to meet customer and business needs.

A full UK driving licence and willingness to travel across the region are required.

Your Rewards & Benefits

We know you'll do great work, so we give a lot back with some of the best benefits in the business. We recognise that one size doesn't fit all, so our workplace programmes are designed to support the diverse needs of our colleagues and their families.

When you join Pearson, you can look forward to:

• Flexibility in the way we work.
• A generous pension scheme, where we match and double your contributions, up to 16% depending on your age.
• Maternity, paternity and family care leave, alongside flexible working policies.
• Share purchase options.
• Healthcare and dental plans, as well as an employee wellbeing assistance programme.
• Cycle to work scheme, gym membership concessions and a range of retail and leisure discounts.

For full details of our UK benefits, please visit Pearson Jobs – Benefits.