Emergency response operations manager jobs in Leeds

Director UK Resilience

 Location: UK Wide, Flexible (Hybrid)

Salary: £83,116 - £116,838 per annum, dependent on experience 
Hours: 35 per week
Contract: Permanent

Are you ready to lead the British Red Cross’s crisis resilience across the UK - helping to prevent suffering, save lives and uphold dignity when it matters most?

This is a rarely advertised, high‑impact leadership opportunity to play a defining role in how the British Red Cross delivers its humanitarian mission across the UK. As Director of UK Resilience, you will lead at the moments when people are most vulnerable - shaping how communities prepare for crises, respond in emergencies, and recover with strength and dignity.

 You will set the strategic direction for a coordinated, UK‑wide approach to emergency response, recovery, preparedness and community education, working in close partnership with government, emergency services, local authorities and the voluntary sector. Your leadership will ensure the British Red Cross is ready to act swiftly and effectively in an increasingly complex and unpredictable crisis landscape.

 Embedded within UK Operations, you will provide national strategic leadership at scale, enabling the organisation to mobilise staff, volunteers and partners rapidly and with confidence. Operating within a complex matrix environment, you will bring together multidisciplinary teams and senior leaders, harnessing the depth of expertise across our workforce and volunteer network to deliver trusted, well‑coordinated humanitarian responses.

 With the reach, credibility and experience of the Red Cross Movement behind you, you will help deliver large‑scale, integrated responses alongside statutory responders - meeting immediate humanitarian need while strengthening long‑term community resilience. Representing the organisation nationally, you will build influential partnerships, support delivery of our 2030 Strategy, and help ensure our crisis response continues to evolve in line with our Fundamental Principles.

 At the heart of this role is a deep commitment to humanity. If you are motivated by purpose, ready to lead at national level, and driven to make a tangible difference in people’s lives when they need it most, this is your opportunity to help lead the Red Cross mission in the UK.

What will a day in the life of a UK Director of UK Resilience involve?

• Providing overall national strategic leadership for the British Red Cross’s UK resilience mission, shaping how we prepare for, respond to and recover from crises across the UK.
• Setting the direction and ensuring delivery of a nationally coherent, evidence‑based UK Resilience offer, aligned to the organisation’s 2030 Strategy and humanitarian mission.
• Leading a large, multidisciplinary directorate across Strategy & Performance, Product, Business Services and Operations, creating clarity of accountability and empowering teams to deliver at scale.
• Acting as the organisation’s professional authority on humanitarian resilience, ensuring British Red Cross expertise informs national policy, standards and practice.
• Building and sustaining strategic partnerships with government (including devolved administrations), statutory responders, civil contingencies partners and the voluntary and community sector.
• Ensuring resilience activity across the UK is effective, consistent, financially sustainable and grounded in operational delivery, with a clear focus on communities most exposed to risk.
• Working closely with operational leaders and volunteer teams to maintain readiness and the ability to scale quickly during crises.

To be a successful UK Director of UK Resilience, what will you need?

• Knowledge of national resilience systems, including preparedness, response and recovery arrangements operating across the UK.
• Senior-level experience of leading or influencing complex, multi-agency and multi-stakeholder environments, with the ability to work effectively across sectors.
• Experience of developing and delivering strategy at national or system level, including translating strategic intent into priorities and outcomes.
• Experience of building and sustaining strategic partnerships with government, emergency responders and voluntary and community sector organisations.
• Experience of operating with senior stakeholders, including producing high-quality strategic documents and Board-level papers.
• Understanding and experience of how risk, vulnerability and impact from crises differ across communities, and how this shapes effective resilience planning and delivery.

We understand that no candidate will meet every requirement. If your experience looks a little different but you feel you can bring value to this role, we would strongly encourage you to apply.

Interested? Apply now!
Please submit your application via the British Red Cross website. You’ll need an up-to-date CV and supporting statement as part of your application.

The closing date for applications is 23.59 on the 5th July 2026.

We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive organisation and we value different experiences and the perspectives that lived experience brings. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, particularly those underrepresented in leadership.

In return for your commitment and expertise, you’ll get:

• Flexible working: Remote and hybrid working, flexitime, compressed hours, and job sharing.
• Holidays: 36 days annual leave (including bank holidays) + option to buy 5 extra days.
• Pension scheme: Up to 6% contributory pension.
• Learning & Development: A wide range of career and learning opportunities.
• Discounts: Blue Light Discount Card, Tickets For Good & employee benefits platform.
• Wellbeing Support: Peer Supporters, CiC (EAP) & Headspace App.
• Cycle2Work: Lease a bicycle through the scheme.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident & Carer Confident employer.

We are dedicated to building an inclusive, equitable and wellbeing‑focused culture where everyone feels safe, valued and can thrive. Guided by our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Strategy, we foster belonging, psychological and physical wellbeing, and work to remove barriers to fair opportunities. Grounded in compassion and anti‑racist practice, we listen to diverse voices, value lived experience and create environments where staff and volunteers can succeed.

Together, we are the world’s emergency responders.

Are you a qualified finance professional who enjoys working in partnership with others to turn financial insight into better decisions? Join Shelter as a Senior Finance Business Partner and play a key role in supporting our directorates to plan, prioritise and deliver work that helps end the housing emergency.

About the role

This role will be leading in the financial business partnering needs of our Income Generation directorate. 

Among your responsibilities will be the need to align financial plans to operational and strategic plans and make sure they’re clearly understood by Business Units. Seeing that each Unit is provided with a channel of effective, two-way communication with Finance will be important too. And, when it comes to seeing that they receive regular relevant and useful financial insight and analysis, again, we’ll count on you to deliver. You’ll be working within a great finance department to achieve this, who work as a team of experts to safeguard resources and support decision making across Shelter. We strive to ensure Shelter is financially sustainable in order to achieve our vision of a home for everyone.

Role specifics

We’re looking for a qualified accountant who is confident working with colleagues across an organisation and able to explain financial information clearly to non-finance audiences. You’ll have experience assessing financial risk and producing clear, insightful analysis to support good decision-making. With strong attention to detail, excellent numeracy and solid Excel skills, you’ll be comfortable managing your time, meeting deadlines and reprioritising when needed. Experience of charity finance and working with fundraising teams would be an advantage.

Apply to be part of our team and be the change you want to see in society.

Benefits 

We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave, enhanced family friendly policies, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.

We are happy to talk about flexible working, personal growth, and to promote a workplace where you can be yourself and achieve success based only on your merit.

About the team

 Shelter’s Finance Team sits within the Strategy Enablement Directorate, which also includes HR Operations, Technology and Data, and Governance, Planning and Property. The Finance Team consists of 32 people led by the Assistant Director of Finance.

This role sits within the Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Team. FP&A produces financial reports and analysis, provides expert advice, and enables collaboration to support effective decision making throughout the charity.

How to Apply

Please click ‘Apply for Job’. You are required to submit your work history and a supporting statement. The supporting statement should include your responses to the points in the ‘About You’ section of the job description of no more than 350 words each. 

Please provide specific examples following the STAR format and ensure you demonstrate how you address the behaviours below in your responses:
 

• We prioritise diversity and have an inclusive and open mindset

Any applications submitted without a supporting statement will not be considered.

About Shelter

Home is a human right. It’s our foundation and where we thrive. Yet everyday millions of people are being devastated by the housing emergency.

We exist to defend the right to a safe home. Because home is everything.

We need ambitious, passionate people to join us. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.

Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. To win this fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, equitable and transparent. We are committed to combating racism both within and outside Shelter. We welcome you on our journey to becoming truly anti-racist.

Safeguarding statement

 Safeguarding is everyone's business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies. 

Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.

Groundwork South is seeking a motivated and experienced Senior Project Officer to lead on the delivery of our Climate Action Fund project over the next five years.

Senior Project Officer (Climate Action Fund Training and Development Lead)
Reference: CAF0626
Contract: Fixed term until June 2031
Hours: Full-Time, 37.5 hours each week
Salary: £28,000 - £32,000 per annum
Location: Home-based (with travel across England) – There is a focus on South West England during the pilot phase

About Us

Groundwork South works with communities across the south of England to transform their lives and the places where they live. We have been at the forefront of social and environmental regeneration for over 25 years, and today we have a simple mission: to create better places, improve people’s prospects, and promote greener living and working.

We are passionate about creating a future where every neighbourhood is vibrant and green, every community is strong and able to shape its own destiny, and no-one is held back by their background or circumstances. This vision drives the work that we do. Each year we deliver over 100 innovative projects, tackling the biggest issues facing our communities and creating real and lasting, positive change.

About the Project

Communities Prepared works with volunteers and communities across England to help them build the skills, confidence and knowledge needed to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. This includes supporting communities to plan for climate-related risks such as flooding, storms, heatwaves, and severe weather.

Despite the successes we have had through our programme to date, we are not currently reaching diverse enough audiences and too often there are people missing from the resilience sector. This needs to change. To address this we are now embarking on an exciting new UK-wide partnership programme funded through the National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund over the next five years.

The programme responds to growing evidence that climate-related emergencies, including extreme heat, flooding, fire, cold and severe weather, disproportionately impact marginalised communities, while those same communities are often excluded from resilience planning and decision-making.

The programme brings together Equally Ours, Communities Prepared (part of Groundwork South), and the VCS Emergencies Partnership (VCSEP, part of the British Red Cross) to strengthen climate resilience by ensuring that communities experiencing discrimination and disadvantage are at the heart of climate preparedness, response, recovery and policy-making.

Through a rights-based and co-produced approach, the programme seeks to shift climate resilience policy and practice away from models that frame communities as “vulnerable”, and towards approaches grounded in agency, participation, equality and shared responsibility.

Key Responsibilities

As Senior Project Officer, you will:

• Work with the project team to map stakeholders and co-develop a structured engagement plan to recruit and work with marginalised communities.
• Build a collaborative and trusting relationship with the partner organisations and other stakeholders for this project, ensuring this work meets their expectations and complements areas of the work programme led by others.
• Work with project participants and partners to co-design Communities Prepared material and delivery methods that are more accessible and relevant to diverse audiences.
• Lead on the delivery of resilience training and workshop sessions with diverse audiences, both in-person and online.
• Work with project participants and partners to co-design a train the trainer model that will enable diverse audiences to deliver resilience training within their own communities, amplifying reach and impact.
• Work with the core Communities Prepared team to adapt our offer with the long-term goal of the Programme reaching more diverse audiences, especially those seldom heard in this sector.

The role involves regular travel across the UK, with a focus on South West England during the project’s pilot phase.

We are looking for someone with:

• Experience in community engagement or community development.
• Experience delivering training or workshops.
• Strong organisational and project management skills.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, confident to engage people from a range of different backgrounds.
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders or partners.
• Confidence working independently in a remote role.
• An interest in climate change, community resilience and wider community development.
• A willingness to travel across the country.

Closing date for applications: 11.59pm, 30th June 2026
Interview date: 15th July over MS Teams
Interview panel: Representatives from Groundwork South, Equally Ours and VCSEP (tbc)

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

Groundwork South is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all members of the community.

No agencies please.