She has a vast experience in tertiary education having worked with The City School, one of the leading educational institutions in Pakistan for over twenty years. She established educational links for The City School with the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford in developing the '0' and 'A' level programmes. In 1992, The City School held the first Oxford University O and A level examination as the centre of the examinations in Pakistan.

In 1992, Mrs. Azra Raza liaised with the twelve universities of the Northern Consortium Universities in UK and helped establish and develop the British Universities Undergraduate Programme (BUUP), pioneering bringing in the country the concept of 'twinning' educational programmes. She remained the Dean of BUUP until 1998 when the five year agreement came to a conclusive culmination. The programme was successfully conducted offering Foundation year and First year of Northern Consortium Universities degree courses. It enabled about 25-30 students per year to seek quality education in British University campuses.

Soon after the closure of the BUUP campus, she was re-assigned the task of managing the Northern Region for the City Schools. This was a challenging job as it was the smallest region of the network. As the Director, Northern region, she expanded the network of schools in the northern Punjab and NWFP. The Islamabad campus building project was undertaken and completed under her tenure. Feasibility studies were completed for the expansion to Peshawar, Kohat, Abbottabad and other cities.

The success of the British Universities Programme encouraged her to focus on student recruitment from Pakistan to UK institutions, she then set up Aspire Educational Consulting in 2000.