Chef manager jobs

Who we are

Chefs in Schools is an ambitious charity that’s rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids' health, through improving school food & food education. We focus our efforts in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, where more than a third of children are entitled to free school meals, and diet-related disease is driving further inequality.

We support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share learning and resources, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.

We’re backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role

This role comes at a pivotal time for Chefs in School and will be key to supporting our vision and ambitions for the next four year strategic period. 

You will have significant experience in monitoring and evaluating programmes in a charity, non-profit, or social enterprise setting. As this is a standalone role with no direct reports, we are looking for a unique professional who is highly strategic but equally happy to roll up their sleeves and be hands-on. You will lead on high-level impact strategy, and you will also be the person designing surveys, managing databases, and directly analyzing the data.

To thrive in this role, you should be:

• An Analytical Thinker & Practical Doer: You can confidently clean, manage, and analyze quantitative and qualitative data yourself, translating complex numbers into highly visual, easy-to-digest reports for our team and funders.

• An Empathetic & Pragmatic Collaborator: You understand that school kitchens and delivery teams are incredibly busy. You excel at designing evaluation tools that are low-burden for our partners but high-yield for our learning.

• Curious & Improvement-Driven: You don't just collect data to check a box for funders; you are passionate about building a "learning culture" where findings are actively used to iterate and improve our programmes.

As we work with children and young people, an offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and DBS clearance, in line with our safeguarding policy.

Key responsibilities:

• Leading on developing and implementing Chefs in Schools’ evaluation and learning strategy, in line with our Theory of Change.

• Owning and overseeing the impact dashboard

• Ownership for embedding a learning culture, ensuring that timely and actionable insights are generated and fed back into design and delivery to support continuous improvement.

• Using internal data and external research to identify what works, ensuring these insights are shared internally and across the sector in line with our strategic objectives.

• Support delivery teams to collect quantitative and qualitative data using the evaluation toolkit. Ensuring data collection is proportionate and meaningful with high completion rates.

• Support delivery teams to understand how impact data can help to improve and develop programme effectiveness, whilst maintaining quality.

• Lead on the dissemination of findings across the organisation, including presenting at internal meetings and events

• Translating data into clear, evidence-based recommendations to guide decision-making 

• Work across the organisation to ensure our impact is effectively communicated with external audiences.

• Identify future research, evaluation and learning priorities that could strengthen Chefs in Schools’ programmes and contribute to wider sector understanding of effective approaches to improving school food.

• Work with external academics and researchers to commission external evaluations to develop our evidence base and contribute to national and international studies .

Essential Skills and Experience

• MEL Experience: Proven experience in a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) or impact measurement role within a charity, non-profit, or social enterprise setting.

• Evaluation Design: Confidence designing and implementing practical evaluation frameworks, data collection tools, logic models, or Theories of Change.

• Hands-on Data Skills: Strong analytical skills with the ability to independently collect, clean, and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. You must be highly proficient in Excel/Google Sheets and comfortable managing data platforms.

• Translation of Evidence: A track record of critically appraising evidence and translating findings into actionable, practical recommendations for delivery teams.

• Communication & Reporting: Ability to produce high-quality, highly visual, and engaging reports and presentations tailored to different audiences (e.g., trustees, funders, operational staff).

• Relationship Building: Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence and support busy operational teams to value and embed data collection.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Sector Knowledge: Knowledge of food systems, school environments, or children and young people’s health and wellbeing.

• External Evaluations: Experience commissioning, managing, or collaborating with external academics and research partners to evaluate programmes.

• Tech & Systems: Familiarity with specific data visualization tools (e.g., PowerBI, Tableau) or CRM databases (ours is Beacon) to streamline data capture and reporting.

Benefits

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who work hard, but believe in a healthy work / life balance. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you’ll be able to contribute to, and draw on, a variety of projects and strategic insights.

We offer 33 days (pro-rata for part time positions) of holiday per year, including bank holidays, a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues, enhanced parental leave. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice.

We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the AIG Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to the role. Please follow this link to answer the questions and submit your application along with your CV.

We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you’re ready to ensure you don’t lose your work if interrupted.

Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A long list of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 mins online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview and complete a task at our office in Brixton, London.

Expected duration of this application process: 4 weeks

1st Round interview will take place the w/c 7th September

Who we are

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that’s rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids' health, through improving school food & food education.

We focus our efforts in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, where more than a third of children are entitled to free school meals, and diet-related disease is driving further inequality.

We support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share learning and resources, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.

We’re backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role

You are a pragmatic, highly analytical data professional who lives at the intersection of charity compliance and modern cloud systems. You are someone who understands that a rapidly growing £2m charity needs lean, workable frameworks, not corporate red tape that stalls delivery.

You bring a strong track record of working within the UK non-profit sector, meaning you already understand the nuances of donor data, PECR regulations, and charity-specific workflows. You don’t just write policy documents; you enjoy untangling data flows and translating complex regulatory requirements into practical, everyday processes.

In this interim role, you will act as the "Product Owner" and "Information Governor" for our systems upgrade. You won't need to do the technical database configuration—we already have a trusted, external Beacon CRM expert to handle the builds. Instead, you will bridge the gap between our teams and the technology. You will run discovery sessions with our Fundraising, Programmes, Finance and Operations teams to map their operational needs, translate these into a compliant data blueprint, and drive our Beacon expert to build them.

Crucially, you won’t need to draft our Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs)—these are already in place. Your job is to audit our systems and processes to ensure we are physically complying with them, designing the exact workflows, access permissions, and data retention schedules needed to keep us airtight. Finally, you will advise us on how to sustainably own our data protection internally going forward.

Key responsibilities:

1. Operationalising Our Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs)

• Translate Contracts into Code: Review our existing, drafted DSAs and map out the exact system processes, fields, and permissions required in Beacon CRM to physically comply with them.

• Consent & Retention Alignment: Ensure that our data capture, consent practices, and deletion cycles perfectly match the legal promises made in our DSAs.

• Audit System Compliance: Inspect our current data flow (website $\rightarrow$ Beacon CRM $\rightarrow$ integrated platforms) to ensure no data leaks or unauthorised sharing are occurring.

2. Business Analysis & Team Alignment

• Run Discovery Sessions: Work with our Fundraising, Services, and Finance teams to understand and map how they currently use data and where their bottlenecks are.

• Synthesise Requirements: Balance the operational needs of different teams (e.g., keeping sensitive service user data strictly partitioned while allowing the fundraising team to run compliant donor campaigns).

• Create Technical Specifications: Translate these mapped team needs into clear, structured functional requirements for our external Beacon CRM expert to build.

3. Data Governance & System Security

• Access & Permissions Architecture: Review and redesign the user access roles within Beacon CRM, establishing a robust "least privilege" framework so staff only access data essential to their role.

• Data Minimisation & Deletion: Define precise data retention schedules and work with the Beacon expert to automate the archiving or permanent deletion of expired records.

• Record of Processing Activities (RoPA): Document and map our internal data flow so we have a clear, compliant audit trail of how data moves through the charity.

4. Sustainable Ownership & Handover

• Future Governance Design: Assess our internal capacity and design a realistic, lightweight model for how we should own data protection internally going forward (including identifying internal roles vs. when to use external support).

• Process Testing & Team Training: Test the newly configured Beacon setups to ensure they work for staff, and deliver a practical, non-boring training session to the team on the new processes.

Essential Skills and Experience

• UK Charity Sector Expertise: Direct experience working within or consulting for UK registered charities, with a deep understanding of charity-specific data issues (such as donor consent, fundraising regulations under PECR, and handling sensitive beneficiary or safeguarding data).

• Operationalising Compliance: Proven experience translating legal data requirements (specifically implementing existing Data Sharing Agreements, DPAs, and GDPR frameworks) into practical, everyday staff workflows and system processes.

• Business Analysis & Stakeholder Mapping: Excellent track record of running discovery sessions with non-technical team heads to untangle, map, and simplify their operational data needs.

• Technical Translation & Developer Management: Experience acting as the "Product Owner" or lead interface between internal teams and external database developers—specifically translating operational needs into clear technical specifications for CRM builds.

• Practical GDPR & PECR Knowledge: A highly pragmatic approach to compliance, with experience building Records of Processing Activities (RoPA), setting up data retention schedules, and designing role-based access permissions.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Passion for our mission. to improve children’s health through school food.

• Familiarity with Beacon CRM: Prior experience auditing, working with, or directing builds within Beacon CRM (or closely related modern cloud charity CRMs like Donorfy or Salesforce).

• Information Governance Qualification: A professional certification in data protection (such as CIPP/E, Practitioner Certificate in Data Protection, or equivalent), though hands-on charity sector experience is valued above theoretical qualifications.

• Transition & Training Experience: Experience training small charity teams on new data habits and helping leadership teams design lightweight, internal data ownership structures.

Benefits

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who works hard but believe in a healthy work/life balance. We were voted one of CODE Hospitality’s happiest places to work in 2024. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you’ll be able to contribute to and draw on various projects and strategic insights.

We offer 33 days of holiday per year including bank holidays, 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period as well as wellbeing days over the summer school holidays.  We also have a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, enhanced parental leave, and free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice.

We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the Aviva Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to their day-to-day job. Please follow this link to answer the questions and submit your application along with your CV.

We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you’re ready to ensure you don’t lose your work if interrupted.

Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A long list of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 mins online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview at our office in Brixton, London.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we will invite candidates to interview based on their answers to a series of questions related to their day-to-day job.

Who we are

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that’s rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids' health, through improving school food & food education. Working in areas of high deprivation, we support and train schools and their kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share our learning and resources freely, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.

We’re backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role

This is a pivotal role, at a pivotal moment for us. We are entering a critical growth phase, which includes rapidly expanding our own operations and managing significant external partnership. As Head of Finance & Systems, you will be accountable for ensuring we have the right systems and structures in place to grow at pace without detriment to good governance.

The purpose of this role is to lead on our finance strategy, and ensure all of our systems, reporting and processes are helping to drive forward the charity and deliver on our objectives at scale. You will work closely with the Chief Executive and Directors to ensure that financial planning is effective and supported by accurate data analysis. You will report directly to Trustees as required and ensure that the highest standards of transparency and probity are maintained. 

You will be joining the team during a period of growth in the size and complexity of our delivery. We currently have 24 employees and anticipate growing significantly in the next twelve months. You will have a crucial role in shaping our systems and processes to ensure we can scale effectively, both our existing programmes and a new membership-based programme that is in development. We’re looking for an experienced finance professional with an interest in effectively using technology and systems to drive efficiency, without compromising on accuracy or compliance. 

You will oversee all financial administration, ensuring this is carried out proficiently and in line with all legal and regulatory requirements, including ultimate responsibility for ensuring that all statutory filings are made accurately and on time. Your role will also encompass ensuring that we operate within legal & regulatory frameworks and stay up to date with changes in relevant legislation.

The responsibilities, skills and experience listed below are intended to give you an idea of what we need for this role. If you don’t meet every requirement, but feel as though you would be able to work with us to deliver the majority of them, we would urge you to apply anyway. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and for us the most important ‘experience’ is passion for our mission. You may be just the right candidate for this, or other roles.  

We want to get to know you at the interview and understand we can do this best if you’re at ease. We’re an inclusive employer and work hard to create a welcoming working environment for everyone, including appointing a neurodiversity champion to help us identify how we can make our work environment work for everyone. If you need adjustments to the interview process please let us know.

As we work with children & young people, an offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and DBS clearance, in line with our safeguarding policy.  

Key responsibilities:

• Developing a comprehensive financial strategy that supports the delivery of the charity’s objectives and activities.

• Have ultimate oversight of the external audit and production of the statutory accounts, supported in delivery of this by the book-keeper.

• Produce the monthly management accounts and bespoke financial reports—including accurate forecasting, restricted fund tracking, and variance analysis—ensuring decision-makers have clear, actionable data.

• Forecasting cash flow and managing the treasury position.

• Manage the contract and performance of the bookkeeper  and outsourced payroll providers; setting strict monthly closing deadlines, enforcing data accuracy, and ensuring they deliver a clean trial balance for management accounting.

• Oversee sound financial administration, management and governance across the organisation, ensuring robust financial controls in place and operating effectively.

• Provide leadership and guidance to all things finance related, providing mentoring and support to the team, and coaching on financial awareness. 

• Accountability for monitoring that the organisation’s services are, and will, run to budget, supporting budget holders and reporting promptly on risks 

• Support the Partnerships & Impact team and Programme Managers with financial inputs to funding proposals and ensure restricted funds are used in compliance with grant conditions.

• Developing our systems strategy, including reviewing suitability of our current systems (Quickbooks for accountancy, Beacon CRM, PLEO for expenses management, Survey Monkey for data collection etc. ) and ensuring optimal use of systems, maximising automation, and using AI where appropriate.

• Constantly seeking to develop and improve the organisation’s financial systems, policies and procedures to promote dynamic, best practice and up-to-date application of tools, systems and approaches

• Supporting the organisation’s data governance by ensuring financial systems (e.g., Quickbooks, payroll, expenses) are secure, compliant, and integrated in line with data protection principles.

• Leading an effective risk management process.

• Ensuring the organisation’s compliance with charity law, in accordance with the Charity Commission in England & Wales and all financial reporting requirements.

Essential Skills & experience:

• Charity Finance Experience: Practical, senior-level experience working within a UK non-profit finance function, including a strong working knowledge of the Charities SORP and accounting for restricted vs. unrestricted funds.

• Hands-on Management Accounting: Proven experience independently producing monthly management accounts, cash flow forecasting, and variance analysis from scratch.

• End-to-End Audit Management: Experience preparing year-end audit files, reconciling balance sheet control accounts, and acts as the primary point of contact for external auditors.

• Accountancy Qualification: Full or partial qualification through an accredited body (ACCA, CIMA, ACA, CIPFA). 

• Tech Literacy & Data Reconciliation: Comfortable troubleshooting and navigating modern finance tech stacks (e.g., Xero, Pleo) and pulling financial data/reports from a CRM system (e.g., Beacon).

• Vendor & Staff Management: Experience supervising junior staff (or office managers) and actively managing the performance, timelines, and accuracy of outsourced providers (e.g., bookkeeping and payroll).

Desirable skills & experience

• Systems Implementation: Past experience project-managing a software migration or building native integrations/automations between a CRM system and accounting software.

• Broader Operations/HR Exposure: Basic familiarity with HR administration, GDPR workflows, or managing organizational risk registers in a small team environment.

• Sector Passion: A demonstrable interest in food education, children’s health, or food systems.

Benefits

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who works hard but believe in a healthy work/life balance. We were voted one of CODE Hospitality’s happiest places to work in 2024. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you’ll be able to contribute to and draw on various projects and strategic insights.

We offer 33 days of holiday per year including bank holidays, 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period as well as wellbeing days over the summer school holidays.  We also have a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, enhanced parental leave, and free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice.

We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the Aviva Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to their day-to-day job. 

We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you’re ready to ensure you don’t lose your work if interrupted.

Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A long list of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 mins online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview at our office in Brixton, London.

Expected duration of this application process: 7 weeks

First interviews will be held 1st -4th September

Who we are:

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that's rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids health, through improving school food & food education. We focus our efforts in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, where more than a third of children are entitled to free school meals, and diet-related disease is driving further inequality.

We support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share learning and resources, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.

We're backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role

The School Food Project is an ambitious coalition-led initiative dedicated to transforming the school food system. To achieve this, we are deploying three distinct school engagement models: Beacon schools (intensive, in-person, deep-impact sites), Explorer schools (hybrid training and peer learning), and Discovery schools (online only support).

We are seeking an exceptional School Food Project Coordinator to serve as the operational engine room and central connective tissue of this project. Reporting directly to the Programme Manager for the School Food Project, this role will be responsible for ownership of all school-level coordination.

As the primary point of contact for all participating schools, you will bridge the gap between the school and the individual coalition’s delivery leads. You will be responsible for nurturing school relationships, maintaining seamless communication across all delivery partners, and ensuring that vital monitoring, evaluation, and impact data flows smoothly from the schools to our evaluation team.

The responsibilities, skills and experience listed below are intended to give you an idea of what we need for this role. If you don't meet every requirement but feel you would be able to work with us to deliver the majority of them, we urge you to apply anyway. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and for us the most important 'experience' is passion for our mission. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. We encourage applicants from all backgrounds, especially those from underrepresented communities, to apply.

We want to get to know you at the interview and understand we can do this best if you're at ease. We're an inclusive employer and work hard to create a welcoming working environment for everyone, including appointing a neurodiversity champion to help us identify how we can make our work environment work for everyone. If you need adjustments to the interview process please let us know.

As we work with children & young people, an offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and DBS clearance, in line with our safeguarding policy.

Key responsibilities

School Coordination & Relationship Management

• Responsible for being the day-to-day first point of contact for all Beacon, Explore, and Discovery schools, ensuring they feel supported, informed, and valued.

• Responsible for the induction and onboarding of schools across the Project.

• Conduct regular, proactive site visits to schools, to build strong, empathetic relationships with school leadership, kitchen staff, and project leads. Initially across London and the North West, scaling nationally year on year.

• Use school visits to monitor delivery quality, identify localised operational challenges, and escalate potential issues to the Programme Manager before they impact delivery.

Coalition & Stakeholder Liaison

• Serve as the central touchpoint and coordinator between the delivery leads of each program across the different organisations within our coalition.

• Ensure that all partner organisations are kept fully up to date with real-time, accurate on-the-ground information and feedback from the participating schools.

• Help facilitate communication loops, ensuring action items involving schools are clearly communicated and executed by the relevant coalition partners.

Data Capture & Impact Reporting

• Take ownership of ensuring that required data points, surveys, and metrics are accurately captured within each school according to project timelines, including conducting school audits for Beacon schools where required.

• Package, organise, and report school-level data back to the Monitoring and Evaluation team to help track project success and iterate delivery models.

Insight & Communication Support

• Keep an eye out for exceptional success stories, milestone achievements, and inspiring moments during school visits.

• Act as a conduit for the internal Communications team by passing along these notes, updates, and on-the-ground insights to celebrate the project's impact.

Essential skills & experience

• Exceptional Project Coordination: A proven track record of managing moving parts, timelines, and logistics across multiple sites or projects simultaneously.

• Superb Relationship-Building: Outstanding interpersonal skills with the ability to quickly build rapport, trust, and influence with a diverse range of stakeholders, from school cooks and headteachers to coalition partners.

• Clear, Proactive Communication: Ability to summarise complex feedback from the ground into clear, concise, and actionable updates for senior leadership and external partners.

• Data Diligence: Strong organisational skills with a sharp eye for detail, ensuring data is collected systematically and accurately in line with M&E requirements.

• IT, Software, and Tech Literacy: Proficiency with office software (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), and familiarity with CRM systems or project management tools.

• Adaptability & Autonomy: Highly self-motivated and comfortable working independently in a hybrid/remote structure, managing your own schedule and priorities effectively.

• Flexibility to Travel: Willingness and ability to travel frequently and extensively across England, specifically prioritising regular visits to school clusters.

Desirable skills & experience

• Sector Familiarity: Prior experience working within, or closely alongside, the UK education sector, schools, charities, or food system initiatives.

• Coalition Experience: Experience working within a multi-partner, consortium, or coalition framework where diplomacy and cross-organisational collaboration are key.

• Problem Solving Skills: Proactive problem-solving skills or the ability to manage and resolve on-the-ground operational challenges.

• Data Protection and GDPR Awareness: An understanding of GDPR compliance.

• A valid UK Driving Licence

Benefits

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who works hard but believe in a healthy work/life balance. We were voted one of CODE Hospitality's happiest places to work in 2024. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you'll be able to contribute to and draw on various projects and strategic insights.

We offer 33 days of holiday per year including bank holidays, 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period as well as wellbeing days over the summer school holidays. We also have a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, enhanced parental leave, and free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice.

We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the Aviva Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to their day-to-day job. Please follow this link to answer the questions and submit your application along with your CV.

Each question has a 250-word limit. We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you're ready, to make sure you don't lose your work if interrupted.

All communication about your application, other than a verbal job offer, will be sent through the Applied platform - please check your Applied account regularly (as well as your spam folder) for updates.

Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers are anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A longlist of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 minute online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview at our office in Brixton, London.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks

Round one interviews online: Tuesday 25th August

Round two interviews in-person: Wednesday 2nd September

Job Title: Head Chef – Felix’s Kitchen (Production Kitchen)

Reporting To: Kitchen Manager

Salary Range: £40,000 – 45,000

Contract Type: Permanent 

Location: Felix’s Kitchen, Thomas Road, Industrial Estate, Poplar, London 

Hours/Days per week: 37.5 hours per week, 4-day compressed hours pattern available Monday – Saturday operation, (mainly Monday – Friday role) 

We are Felix

We bring people together to rescue, repurpose, and share surplus food that would otherwise go to waste, turning an environmental problem into a social opportunity. 

Together with 16 other independent charities, 18,000 volunteers, and thousands of partners, we are the UK’s food rescue network, supporting 1.5 million people across the country.

We are about fuller plates, fuller communities, and fuller lives.

Our Mind Sets 

SAFETY FIRST – ONE TEAM ONE MISSION – BUILD TRUST IN EVERY INTERACTION – GROWING TOGETHER

Purpose of the Job 

We are looking for the Head Chef to play a key role leading the team at Felix’s Kitchen to continue and grow on the success of the last four years of operations. 

Felix’s Kitchen opened in 2021 and has grown its impact and output since then, to now be a one-of-a-kind kitchen producing 4.5-5 thousand ready meals 6 days a week made from surplus ingredients. 

No two days will ever be the same, we work with surplus ingredients meaning each dish is unique and based on the incredible seasonal surplus ingredients we have received into out Poplar Depot based next to the kitchen. We have a core team of staff who run the operation but our work force in made up volunteers who support all aspects of our kitchen operations. 

The new Head Chef will line manage the chef team of roughly 10 people and be working in our main production kitchen every day, leading the team from the front, setting the standards and organising the days production. 

Whilst managing, planning and leading are the core of the role it is a hands-on role working in the kitchen to achieve the daily production targets, setting the standards and cooking new recipes each day. 

Duties and Responsibilities 

• Lead the Kitchen side of the operation on a day-to-day basis, setting the prep, packing and cooking schedules for the day(s) ahead 

• Support the team from the front in delivering the days output objectives and problem solving across the kitchen operation 

• Line Manage the Kitchen team, focussed on the daily management but also working on people and team management alongside the kitchen manager

• Work alongside the kitchen management team to ensure all H&S, Food Safety and HACCP standards are met & monitored effectively 

• Participate in all external Health & Safety and Food Safety audits and carry out internal audits/checklist 

• Be accountable for the creation of unique recipe and spec sheets every day and managing the team to do so 

• Create and monitor the packing list for the packing team to produce the final meal products, ensuring accurate labelling and allergen information is given Monitorand control inbound food supplies, ensuring the ingredients are used effectively and safely 

• Maintaining cleanliness standards throughout the kitchen and food storage areas 

• Working alongside the kitchen manager on improving quality, quantity and consistency of Felix Meals 

• Ensure the team can provide a hot lunch for the staff at Poplar each day from our surplus ingredients 

• Working to support the volunteers in the kitchen, with hands on instructions and overall experience management.

Your normal duties and responsibilities will be set out in your job description. However, the charity may require you to perform other duties from time to time. 

Person Specification 

Felix’s Kitchen is a truly unique operation; we are looking for someone with experience cooking in a large production operation however people skills, working style and personality are the most important part of this role. 

Being able to adapt and plan on the go is essential, enjoying knowing that each day will require a tweak to the plan and approaching this in a posistive manner is key. Being excited by the joy and the challenge of working with surplus food, adapting recipes and plans with the team. 

You will be working with a diverse team of staff and volunteers, being open to meeting new people everyday and supporting them with your experience and knowledge. Ensuring our standards are always met but the volunteer experience is enjoyable and productive. 

Being passionate about food insecurity, supporting communities and surplus food is essential, we are passionate about what we do and even more importantly why we do it. 

Driving the standards within the team and operation whilst maintaining a posistive working environment and a culture of inclusivity throughout everything you do. 

Research shows some people, especially women and marginalised groups, may hesitate to apply unless they match all the criteria. However, we want to assure everyone that we encourage applications from all individuals, regardless of whether they fulfil every point in the job description. Your unique perspective matters to us – please apply with confidence

Essential Criteria 

• Experience leading a team as a head chef (or similar) in a kitchen operation

• Cooking in a professional production kitchen or large-scale operation 

• Level 3 or higher Food Safety Training (fresh courses will be provided) 

• Current or previous training in HACCP, Risk Assessments, Allergen awareness

• Knowledge on how to create and/or implement a HACCP Plan 

• Confidence in the ability to create recipes daily, with a base experience and knowledge to facilitate this 

We reserve the right to close advertisements early and we might assess candidates and arranging interview as applications come in, so please apply as soon as possible, to avoid missing out on this opportunity.

Recruitment timeline

We reserve the right to close advertisements early and we might assess candidates and arranging interview as applications come in, so please apply as soon as possible, to avoid missing out on this opportunity.  

Due to the anticipated large number of applicants, if you do not hear from us within four weeks of your application, we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful. Consequently, will not be able to provide feedback.

As a Support Worker at Ace of Clubs drop-in day centre supporting people who are homeless and facing adversity, you will play a key role in supporting individuals who may be navigating chaotic lifestyles, trauma, and multiple disadvantages. You will provide practical and emotional support, help people access essential services, and work to empower them to move towards independence.

Your role will involve working directly with service users, managing case records, liaising with partner agencies, and contributing to the smooth running of our busy centre. Ultimately, you will support people to overcome barriers, develop essential skills, and build confidence in navigating life challenges and providing advocacy where needed.  In particular, you will be on duty as Support Worker during our busy, daily lunchtime service - responding to the needs of a variety of guests – on a busy day we can reach 150 – 200 guests visiting our service.

In addition, Ace of Clubs works with a wide range of volunteers and partners on a daily basis including food partners, health partners, corporate, individual and client volunteers.  Your role will also be required to support the team in the smooth functioning of these areas, for example liaising with partners on site, showing around volunteers or feeding back any issues during lunch service.

You will also support with the operations and building’s co-ordination, including carrying out weekly health and safety checks as required, i.e. fire alarm checks, legionella checks etc., meeting onsite contractors, counting and logging cash takings, responding and filtering the central email account and making food and supplies orders. You will be provided with comprehensive training in these areas.

Application Instructions

• For your application you need to submit:
- A covering letter (no longer than 1.5 sides of A4) which clearly states how your experience demonstrates your Skills, Competencies and Personal Attributes specified in the Personal Specification. If you do not have direct experience in the charity sector, please consider the skills and experience you have gained in other work, volunteer, studying or extra-curricular activities.
- A CV (no more than 2 pages) that includes Contact Details, Education, Employment, Volunteering/Extra-Curricular (as relevant), 2 x Reference contacts (Employment and Character Reference required).