Sarah Butler has worked in higher education institutions for over 25 years. She has undertaken a wide variety of management roles ranging from corporate planning and governance to institutional oversight of arrangements for all undergraduate assessment, examinations and classification. During the last twelve years she has worked mainly on quality assurance and enhancement, nine of which have been as Director of Academic Support at the University of Sussex, responsible for the strategic development of academic policies and regulations governing the maintenance of academic standards; the direction of professional support for curriculum design and approval and for enhancement and innovation in learning, teaching and assessment; oversight of collaborative provision; and the development of internal strategies in response to changing national quality assurance requirements.

She has acted as an external assessor on internal quality reviews and institutional recognition panels for a range of universities. She was a member of the QAA Working Group responsible for the revision of the External Examining section of the QAA Code of Practice. Since November 2006 she has been seconded to the QAA, on a half-time basis, working in the Development and Enhancement Group. At QAA her duties have encompassed work on national qualifications frameworks (in particular the revision of the FHEQ in 2008) and their referencing to European frameworks; the development of the Higher Education Credit Framework for England; the revision of section 5 of the QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education: Academic appeals and student complaints on academic matters, and liaison with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA). She has also acted as an Assistant Director co-ordinating QAA institutional audits.