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Business Planning & Performance Specialist
Permanent. Full Time. Hybrid working. (You will be required to attend the office for a minimum of 2 days per week with the option to work remotely for the remaining 3 days).
Location: The role can be based in the following locations:
UK - Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, or Warrington
Salary:
London: £53,459 (including London allowance) per annum
Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Warrington - £48,576 per annum
Applications are reviewed on an ongoing basis. We will be conducting interviews as suitable candidates apply and we'll ready to hire if we find the right person before the job ad closes. So, if you're interested in this role we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
About us
Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. We are a global movement of people, churches and local organisations who passionately champion dignity, equality and justice worldwide. We are the changemakers, the peacemakers, the mighty of heart.
We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and recognise the value this brings in forming strong, creative and high performing teams. We welcome applications from all sections of the community, and from those with experience from outside of the voluntary sector. And no, you don’t have to be Christian to work here – we encourage people of all faiths and none to apply. We just ask that everyone lives out our values of dignity, equality, justice and love. We value a good work-life balance, so we’re open to part-time and flexible working. We also offer hybrid working for our office-based colleagues and the option of being a homeworker for most of our roles too.
About the role
Reporting in to the Strategy & Performance Lead, the Business Planning & Performance Specialist will co-lead the corporate planning and reporting cycle, cascading the global strategy into annual corporate plans and OKRs, while fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
The post-holder will partner with their assigned departments to support them to be high performing teams with business plans aligned to organisational values and goals, and together with the Strategy and Performance Lead and the Business Insights & Intelligence Analyst, they ensure alignment between departmental objectives, operational plans, measures of success and support high performance.
Some of the main responsibilities of the Business Planning & Performance Specialist will include:
- Support the Strategy and Performance Lead in setting and maintaining the strategic planning framework cascading strategy into annual business plans for all business units, enabling alignment with organisational values and goals.
- Co-Lead Corporate Planning and Reporting: Co-lead the organisation-wide corporate planning and reporting cycle—shaping the organisation annual corporate plan, defining OKRs, and tracking progress. Work alongside the other Business Planning and Performance Specialist to drive a consistent and effective business planning process.
- Lead Development of Business Plans and OKRs: Lead the development of annual departmental business plans and OKRs, ensuring alignment with corporate OKRs and integrating budgeting and risk management to produce coherent, strategically connected plans.
- Support Departmental Leadership: Work closely with Senior Management Teams—particularly within Income and Public Engagement, Finance, and Governance—to develop and deliver clear, trackable business plans aligned with organisational strategy. Serve as an active member of relevant departmental management teams to ensure Christian Aid’s strategy and corporate plan are fully embedded across both operational and strategic workstreams.
- Manage Corporate Performance Reporting: Oversee organisation-wide performance tracking and reporting, ensuring timely and accurate updates for senior leaders and key external stakeholders, including inputs to Christian Aid’s Annual Report & Accounts.
- Ensure Strategic Alignment: Liaise closely with the Strategy and Learning Manager and the Impact and Evidence Manager to ensure departmental plans are aligned with the overarching organisational strategy and can support effective reporting and performance management.
- Facilitate strategic decision-making, prioritisation, and tracking of performance against plans in the department, feeding back continuously to improve performance.
- Strengthen Leadership Engagement: Coordinate with senior leaders to support strategic engagement with business plans and performance reports, enabling strategic thinking, accountability, and maximising impact.
- Champion Data-Driven Culture: Promote and embed a data culture across the organisation, working closely with Business Insights & Intelligence Analysts to support data-informed decision-making.
- Promote Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of continuous improvement and lead enhancements to planning and performance processes to improve organisational effectiveness.
- Collaborate Across the Organisation: Work collaboratively with internal stakeholders to ensure quality engagement, consistent approaches, and alignment across planning, performance, and learning activities.
About you
Who we are looking for
Essential:
- Significant experience in leading organisational planning and performance within a complex, multi-unit environment, including translating strategy into coherent, actionable operational and business plans.
- Strong analytical skills, with significant experience using a range of qualitative and quantitative data sources to inform planning, prioritisation and performance monitoring.
- Proven ability to work collaboratively across departments and leadership groups, building consensus on strategic goals, OKRs and performance measures.
- Experience producing high-quality organisational reporting, such as Annual Reports, Progress Reports, Results Reports or similar publications.
- Broad organisational understanding, with knowledge and experience of working finance and governance, or fundraising teams
- High-level facilitation and engagement skills, with the ability to communicate planning and performance concepts clearly, run effective workshops, and ensure corporate processes are accessible and well understood- fostering high ownership and accountability behaviours in teams.
- Strong financial literacy, including understanding of budgeting and financial management practices, and the ability to integrate financial planning with business planning.
- Advanced planning, performance and prioritisation skills across diverse functions and operating contexts.
- Solid grounding in project management, including practical tools and methods for tracking and delivering multi-stream plans.
- Highly developed problem-solving skills and the ability to find innovative and practical solutions.
- Excellent negotiation and influencing skills, with the ability to secure buy-in, shift behaviours, and support adoption of new processes and ways of working across the organisation.
Desirable:
- Highly developed communication skills and the ability to understand and translate complex information to a variety of audiences.
- Experience working in multicultural and diverse environments with a strong commitment to Christian Aid’s values and mission.
- Experience of working in a dispersed team.
- Highly developed ability to think strategically and laterally, combining big picture thinking with practical application.
Further information
At Christian Aid we strive to be an inclusive and diverse employer and recognise the value that this brings in helping to build strong, creative and high performing teams.
We are actively encouraging racialised minorities, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people with caring responsibilities, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, women, and older workers to apply. This is because these groups are under-represented within our teams, especially at senior level, and we recognise and value the contributions members of these groups make to strong, creative and high performing teams.
We have a strong Christian ethos and we encourage applications from all faiths. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of and sympathy with Christian Aid’s faith identity.
All successful candidates will require a DBS/police check appropriate to the role and location and a Counter Terrorism Sanction check as part of your clearance for commencing your role with us. We also participate in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, we will request information as part of the referencing process from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.
This role requires applicants to have the right to live and work in the country where this position is based and undertake the role that you have been offered. If you are successful and we make you an offer for the role, we will be required to conduct a right to work check on your immigration status in the UK. We will contact you regarding the documentation you will need to provide to evidence this.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Salary: £46,698 (London) / £42,373 (National) per annum
Hours: 35 hrs per week
Contract: Fixed term contract (until March 2027)
Benefits
· 27 days annual leave + statutory holidays + 3 closures days over the Christmas period;
· Flexible working for all staff including working from home / hybrid working, and flexi-time/TOIL scheme;
· Attractive family friendly policies;
· Private healthcare cover;
· Season ticket loans;
· Employee awards, and training and development opportunities.
For more information about our benefits please visit our website.
Office locations: London, Bristol or homeworker
The role will involve spending a substantial amount of time in the East of England (including early starts/late finishes and overnight stays where required) and regular travel nationwide for NHF events and meetings.
Please note, if office based, the successful candidate will be expected to carry out two days in-person working per week on average which will include attendance at your office location.
Flexible working arrangements can be discussed and agreed with the line manager subject to role and business needs.
An exciting opportunity has arisen at the National Housing Federation (NHF) to join our team of External Affairs Managers on a fixed-term basis to cover maternity leave. The NHF is the voice of housing associations in England. We are the trade body to almost 600 housing associations, who have grown from philanthropic roots to provide 2.6 million homes to around 6 million people. You can find further information about the NHF on our website.
Could you be our new External Affairs Manager, working closely with our housing association members across the East of England?
This is a unique and varied role which would appeal to someone with a background in areas such as stakeholder management, policy, public affairs, communications, programme management – or a combination of these areas! For example, you may be looking to step into a role to further develop your leadership and stakeholder engagement skills, whilst still building on your policy or programme management experience and knowledge.
You will operate at the heart of social housing by working with key decision makers across the housing association sector – including managing relationships with chief executives, chairs of boards and executive directors. Strong communication and influencing skills are essential to the role, as well as the confidence to work at the most senior levels.
It is crucial that you can work collegiately to lead key programmes of work across the NHF with colleagues in other teams, for example from our policy, press, events, and public affairs teams. Equally, you will be comfortable working autonomously and shaping your own work programme.
The core of the role involves being responsible for engagement with a whole geographic region of our membership; and working closely on or leading one of the NHF’s key themes of work, which include areas such as supported housing; devolution; developing new homes; decarbonising existing homes; ensuring the building safety agenda is delivered; or representing our rural or smaller housing associations.
The role is wide ranging and in addition to stakeholder management and programme leadership, will include running roundtables between our members and government, chairing sessions at NHF conferences, and presenting political and policy updates to senior teams within housing associations.
You will be part of a team of eight External Affairs Managers sitting within the member services directorate, which is there to ensure that we provide excellent value for money for our housing association members.
Key elements of the role:
· You will build and maintain brilliant relationships with housing associations leaders, using your well-developed communication and advocacy skills to maximum effect.
· You will develop knowledge, insight and understanding of housing associations to shape our policy and influencing work and to create structured programmes of member engagement on critical policy and political issues.
· You will be the contact point for housing associations in your region, ensuring they receive first class customer service on the issues which matter to them. Working closely with NHF members you will facilitate the organisation of regional chief executive or leaders forums and sounding boards.
· In addition to your regional work, you will lead on the strategic planning and delivery of a key NHF policy priority. This will require collaborative working with colleagues from across the organisation and working with members across every region and specialism. You will play a leadership role, creating structured engagement strategies to ensure members are able to influence policy as well as engaging key NHF stakeholders and sharing best practice.
· Your role will be to implement structured member engagement to ensure our policy priorities, positions and influencing work are member-led. This will include working directly with members to inform our policy positions and lead our influencing work.
· You will influence debates at the highest level and you will spot in advance and act strategically to mitigate the risk to our membership. As such, this role requires a high degree of political and organisational acumen and the ability to horizon scan.
· You will work with colleagues in our Commercial and Events teams to maximise commercial opportunities and help shape content at our conferences, as well chairing conference sessions.
· To be the face and voice of the NHF with members, stakeholders and the media.
· To ensure that as an organisation we deliver as a whole team, seamlessly, to members to achieve greatest impact in line with the business strategy.
· To maintain high quality standards and follow NHF policy and process.
The successful candidate:
The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate:
· A sound knowledge and understanding of housing associations and issues affecting the wider sector.
· A sound understanding of the political and policy landscape that housing associations operate in.
· Demonstrable knowledge and experience of establishing and maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders, demonstrating excellent customer service and value for money.
· Effective communication skills, in person and in writing, including the ability to credibly and confidently present at meetings and events.
· Ability to listen to and influence senior stakeholders, demonstrating diplomacy, effective communication and negotiation skills.
· Clear leadership skills, able to lead complex and strategic programmes of work effectively, including experience of matrix managing and motivating a team.
· Excellent analytical skills and strategic nous with the ability to summarise complex information effectively to aid decision making.
· A commitment to excellent customer service.
· A positive, energetic and agile approach to work.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
The NHF has published its equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, which was co-created with staff. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and we value the contribution each individual makes to our work.
We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and are working to increase the diversity profile of our workforce. We are currently under-represented by ethnic minorities, people with a disability or disabilities and LGBTQ+, and would particularly welcome applications from people in these groups.
Disability confident employer
We are a disability confident employer and if you are a disabled person who meets the skills and experience we consider essential for the role, we will offer you an interview.
Please note: there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as high-volume of applications, we may be required to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.
In these circumstances the NHF will select the disabled candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as we would do for non-disabled applicants. This is in line with the Disability Confident guidelines.
We are happy to consider reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process if you have a disability or have a condition that you feel may affect your performance during the recruitment process. Please contact the People team with your request or to arrange a time to discuss in more detail.
Our role profile and job advert can also be requested in large print or in accessible format via this email address.
Completing our Application Form
To apply for this role, please complete our online application form. The application form includes your employment and education history plus you will be asked to answer questions in relation to your knowledge, skills and experience, why you are applying for the role and questions in relation to our values. The application form is anonymous and will not require you to upload a CV or cover letter. This will help us to shortlist candidates for interview based solely on their knowledge, skills and experience.
Right to work in the UK/UK VISA sponsorship
You must have the right to work in the UK and it is important to note that the NHF does not sponsor individuals to work in the UK.
Closing date for applications: 4 January 2026
Interview date: 14 and 15 January 2026
Registered Charity
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We are the voice of England’s housing associations.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.