The EOA was first established in 2000/1, shortly after the introduction of Curriculum 2000 which had resulted in a major upheaval of the examinations system.

It was founded by three teaching exam officers – Andrew Harland, Uday Patel and Roger Pointon – who wanted to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by their fellow exam officers and so improve their working lives. In 2001 a website was set up by Uday Patel to support the work of the EOA and a number of conferences were run to support the needs of the exam office personnel with an emphasis on bringing the whole examination community together.

The founder members saw the need for a strong peer support network and wanted to give an independent 'voice' to all the exam office community. The feeling of members at the time was that they wanted to be defined as  "examination officers" (as first mentioned formally by Mike Tomlinson in his report in 2002). This established the organisations name. The Examination Officers' Association. Shortly after it's creation Roy Waite joined the team to provide his expertise on ICT issues that plagued the exam community.

In 2004, as a result of funding from the NAA via the DFES, Andrew Harland and Uday Patel took up  full-time roles with the EOA, to turn the original lobby organisation into a professional body. At this point the EOA was the only grass roots organisation serving the needs of the exams office community and began to work closely with the National Assessment Agency (NAA), an operational arm of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) on all aspects of the NAA’s Modernisation Programme, both by communicating the views of exam officers to the NAA and by providing expertise in areas such as training and publications.

The original "wish list" of needs and concerns, provided by the EOA's founder members, based on feedback from the community, was established with the help of the NAA resources. The EOA lobbied the NAA to implement the Capital Funding Programme to help provide a level playing field on IT provision in centres and improve security. £1000 was given to those centres who requested support for their exams office.  Another successful part of the NAA programme was the creation of a centre support team which the EOA helped to form and train.  This invaluable resource had been high on the EOA wish list.

The EOA continues to work closely with the NAA and all stakeholders, with a view to building new relationships, practices and procedures that will meet the future needs of the whole exam/education community. The EOA is an independent organisation, run by exam officers for exam officers. In 2005, the EOA was registered as the professional organisation representing the exams office community and obtained charitable status.  In 2007 the EOA moved to offices in Reading and Andrew Harland  continued his key role as Chief Executive of the EOA. Virginia Cashin joined the EOA team in 2008 as their new Business Manager and the EOA moved to new offices at the University of Reading in 2009.