Location: London (hybrid)

Role:

The Junior Product Owner supports the delivery of English Online product initiatives by assisting Senior Product Owners, Delivery Leads and cross-functional teams. The role provides hands-on experience in Agile product development and offers a pathway to develop core product ownership skills. Reporting to the Head of Product, the role contributes to improving team documentation, communication, and delivery processes. 

This role sits within the English Online Product Team in London (hybrid working with 2-3 days per week in our Stratford office) and provides structured support to key product functions. It offers exposure to Agile methodologies, digital learning products and cross-functional collaboration, making it a valuable entry point into product management. 

Company:

The British Council builds connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language. We work in two ways – directly with individuals to transform their lives, and with governments and partners to make a bigger difference for the longer term, creating benefit for millions of people all over the world. We help young people to gain the skills, confidence and connections they are looking for to realise their potential and to participate in strong and inclusive communities. We support them to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications. Our work in arts and culture stimulates creative expression and exchange and nurtures creative enterprise. We connect the best of the UK with the world and the best of the world with the UK. These connections lead to an understanding of each other's strengths and of the challenges and values that we share. This builds trust between people in the UK and other nations which endures even when official relations may be strained. We work on the ground in more than 100 countries and connect close to 1 billion people globally.

Responsibilities:

• Support Senior Product Owners and Delivery Leads across English Online projects and workstreams. 


• Support product workstreams across the English Online platform, contributing to a range of digital learning initiatives. 

• Assist with backlog preparation, documentation and user story creation under supervision. 

• Help maintain product artefacts such as roadmaps, release notes, and feature documentation. 


• Help coordinate discovery activities by gathering user insights, analytics and stakeholder inputs. 

• Contribute to project coordination by helping monitor tasks, dependencies, risks and timelines. 

• Contribute to Agile ceremonies by preparing materials, capturing actions, and ensuring follow-up. 


• Collaborate with UX, content, engineering, data and operations on product design and delivery insights. 

• Support internal communication of product updates to stakeholders across the organisation. 

• Gather and organise user feedback, analytics and research inputs to support product discovery. 

• Help track progress of development tasks and highlight issues or risks to Senior Product Owners. 

• Participate in testing activities, such as reviewing prototypes or validating feature behaviour. 

• Assist in improving product processes, documentation standards and knowledge-sharing resources. 

Requirements:

• A university degree or equivalent experience demonstrating analytical or organisational capability. 


• Basic understanding of digital product development. 

• Strong interest in digital products, technology and user experience design. 

• Ability to organise work effectively and manage multiple small tasks simultaneously. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills. 

• Drive to learn product management tools, Agile methods and digital delivery practices. 

• Ability to work well with others and contribute positively to team culture. 

• Attention to detail and ability to capture information accurately. 

• Basic understanding of user needs and an interest in user-centred thinking. 

• Motivation to develop skills in product ownership within a supportive environment. 

• Curiosity, enthusiasm and a proactive attitude towards learning. 

Bonus skills:

• Internship, voluntary or previous work experience on product related projects.

• Familiarity with digital tools e.g., Jira, Confluence, Miro, Figma.

• Basic understanding of Agile, Scrum or iterative development principles. 

• Interest in EdTech, online learning, digital content or language-learning platforms. 

• Exposure to user research, testing or analytics (academic or practical). 

• Strong interest in AI-enabled learning or new technologies. 

• Experience supporting communication or documentation tasks in teams. 

• Understanding of accessibility or inclusive design principles. 

Essential:

• Fluency in English.


• Unlimited right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship.


• Flexibility to work in a hybrid capacity in our London office (Stratford)

British council values:

British council values and behaviours are applicable across our organisation, in all roles and at all levels. They are important because they say what we stand for at the British Council and help us to deliver our strategy. We use them to guide our decision making, as well as guiding how we treat one another and the people we work with. These will be assessed in the selection process. Our values are: 

Open and Committed; Expert and Inclusive; Optimistic and Bold.  

The behaviours for each values pair can be found on our Intranet SharePoint site for internal staff and at our Careers portal for external applicants.