Who will be the next leader of the Office for Students?

The recruitment of a new chief executive to lead the Office for Students (OfS) could be a chance to reset relations with the higher education sector, say experts and former employees – but finding a candidate who can be both a friend to and critic of universities is unlikely to be easy.  

Having held the post for nearly four years, Susan Lapworth is set to leave England’s sector regulator at Easter 2026 as part of a string of recent leadership changes, including a new chair, former Nottingham Trent University vice-chancellor Edward Peck, and the departure of director of fair access John Blake.

The advertisement for Lapworth’s replacement, recently published by the government, sets out what ministers are looking for, stressing that the next chief executive will “lead the OfS through the next phase of its work”. 

As well as ensuring delivery of the regulator’s core responsibilities around quality, student protection and financial sustainability, the new appointee “will be expected to support the sector in meeting the ambitions of the [skills] White Paper, including the shift towards a system that better meets the skills needs of the economy”. 

The candidate must have the ability “to play a key role in the leadership of the English higher education sector” and be able to “influence, command the respect of and build effective relationships with stakeholders across the public, private or voluntary sectors”. 

Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London, said the advert was “strikingly clear” about the government’s expectations. “It calls for a leader who can marry strategic reform with a grasp of large-scale operations, marking a deliberate shift from crisis‑response regulation to long‑term stewardship of the sector.”

She said it suggests that the appointee will be “cast as both an independent regulator and a public advocate” as well as “a leader who can move the regulator away from its highly politicised, punitive past towards a culture of transparency and continuous improvement”. 

Richard Puttock, head of business intelligence and data analytics at the University of Leeds and a former OfS director, said the tone of the advert cements the shift in recent years – and particularly since Peck’s appointment as chair – from a “detached” regulator to one “that is supporting and promoting and acting as a custodian of the sector”.

The next chief exective is unlikely to have an easy time. With the sector facing a financial crisis, the regulator appears to be struggling to manage its existing workload while being tasked with more responsibility by the government. 

Lapworth, who held senior roles at the regulator’s predecessor, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, before transitioning to the OfS on its inception, has been criticised by some in the sector for presiding over a regulator that was seen as too confrontational at times. 

An independent review published in 2024 noted that some believed the OfS took an “unnecessarily adversarial and arm’s-length approach” to working with providers, while others accused the regulator of lacking transparency.

Brooke Storer-Church, chief executive of GuildHE and former head of skills at the OfS, said the regulator had “worked in an unnecessarily combative and aloof way at times”.

“It is common knowledge that the OfS’ prevailing leadership style has chipped away at its credibility within the sector over those years,” she added. 

“While we’ve seen greater attempts to build bridges again with sector leaders over the past year, the extent to which that can be trusted has always been mitigated by the fact that it has been driven by the same leader who encouraged a more contentious engagement style in the past.”

With the salary set at £145,000 per annum for a four-year term, the role seems unlikely to appeal widely to current vice-chancellors, who are paid more than double that, on average. Instead, some speculated that applicants could include experienced university registrars and chief operating officers, heads of mission groups and former vice-chancellors, as well as internal candidates. 

David Bell, vice-chancellor of the University of Sunderland, said he would like to see someone “with senior experience of leading a higher education institution” as the next chief executive. 

“While such a person, quite properly, must fulfil their duties and responsibilities as chief executive of the regulator, I think credibility is crucial, as is the ability to talk about regulation with experience from ‘the other side’, as it were.”

Storer-Church added that she would like someone with knowledge of smaller and specialist providers, as well as traditional universities, to secure the position. The OfS is likely to see a surge in these institutions joining its books when new requirements come in that make it compulsory for franchise providers with more than 300 students to register with the regulator. 

Although applicants are likely to keep their cards close to their chest, some of the potential candidates that have been suggested by people in the sector include Chris Millward, former director of access and participation at the OfS, who recently rejoined the regulator on an interim basis; Nick Hillman, chief executive of the Higher Education Policy Institute who was previously billed as a potential candidate for the regulator’s free speech director role; Jo Saxton, chief executive of Ucas who previously led Ofqual; and Anthony McClaran, vice-chancellor of St Mary’s University and former chief executive of Australia’s higher education regulator, as well as former head of the Quality Assurance Agency and Ucas in the UK.