Development lead jobs in Birmingham
Want more results?
Add job titles:
How's your job search on our site?
Join us at a pivotal moment for the education sector.
ISBL is launching a major new initiative – the Centre for Education Operational Excellence – designed to transform how schools and trusts operate. We are seeking a proactive and strategic Business Development Lead to help shape, drive, and deliver this ambitious programme from inception.
About ISBL
ISBL has a 30‑year track record of supporting and developing a unique cadre of education professionals: school business leaders. Our work is underpinned by nationally endorsed professional standards and our OpEx for Education™ framework, placing us at the heart of sector improvement and operational excellence.
We serve a community of approximately 24,000 schools within a sector worth more than £80 billion, giving us significant reach, influence, and opportunity. Our core services span institute membership, professional development, research, events, sector innovation, and the sharing of best practice – creating a rich platform for partnership growth and impact.
Introducing the Centre for Education Operational Excellence
The Centre represents the next evolution of our work, extending ISBL’s focus from individual professional development to whole‑organisation operational excellence across schools and trusts.
It brings together three interconnected hubs:
- Solutions – Practical, high‑impact services and tools that support operational improvement.
- Research – Evidence‑based insights that shape best practice and drive innovation.
- International – Collaboration across global education systems to raise operational standards worldwide.
Working alongside ISBL, these hubs form a powerful ecosystem that connects practice, research, and international learning – strengthening organisational performance and, ultimately, educational outcomes.
About the Role
As Business Development Lead, you will play a central role in shaping the Centre’s commercial strategy, building new partnerships, and driving sustainable growth. This is a rare opportunity to influence a nationally significant initiative.
Full role details are available in the attached job description.
Please submit:
• Your CV
• A covering letter (max two pages) addressed to Stephen Morales, CEO, ISBL, outlining your motivation, suitability, and addressing:
1. What do you understand to be the priorities for this new initiative?
2. Why are you the right person to deliver this?
You will be informed whether you have been shortlisted by 12:00 noon on Friday 24 April 2026.
First-round interviews are expected to take place via Microsoft Teams on Wednesday 29 April 2026.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
We are looking for a part time Fundraising & Development Lead to join a small, ambitious global charity and play a critical role in securing funding from Trusts and Foundations to deliver innovative development initiatives.
The ideal candidate would bring senior-level fundraising experience from a similar role at an NGO, organisation, or charity with an established network of executive relationships in major foundations.
This is a remote working role.
The charity
An ambitious, fast paced and passionate global development charity, dedicated to to collaborating world wide to make a lasting social impact. A small charity having a big impact, with an innovative start up culture with staff in the UK and Europe . This role will report into the Director and work closely with another part time highly experienced trusts and foundations fundraiser.
The Role
This is a new business focused role, where you will be required to build a high value pipeline of suitable donors and develop and deliver compelling high value bids for support.
Applications & Fundraising Development
Lead the development of high-quality grant proposals, ensuring proposals are compelling, well-written, and tailored to meet the requirements and priorities of each donor.
Relationship Management
Oversee the complete grant lifecycle, from initial lead to application to reporting and closeout.
Build and maintain relationships with current and prospective donors, program officers, and other key stakeholders.
Events and Networking and Representation
Effectively convey the charity mission, vision, and programs to potential donors, organising fundraising events while overseeing teams of volunteers and probono partners.
The Candidate
Senior-level fundraising experience from a similar role at an NGO, organisation, or charity.
Extensive existing network of senior executives with major global foundations and organisations.
Proven track record of identifying and closing deals for 6 - 7 figure gifts.
IMPORTANT NOTE
This charity is reviewing applications on a rolling basis so please get in touch ASAP to find out more. Please note the post must be based in the UK.
Our aim is to respond to all successful applications within 5 days. If you haven't been contacted within 5 days your application has been unsuccessful, but we positively encourage you to apply for any other positions that you may see in the future.
We apologise that we cannot contact everybody in person but thank you in advance for your interest.
Third Solutions encourages applications from individuals of all ages & backgrounds. Appointment will be made on merit alone but candidates must be able to demonstrate their ability to work in the UK. Third Solutions acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment & an employment business for temporary recruitment as defined by the Conduct of Employment Agencies & Employment Business Regulations 2003.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
Key information
Salary: £50,000 – £55,000 depending on experience (plus benefits)
Contract: Full time, 12-month fixed term contract, with potential for extension (part-time considered for the right candidate).
Location: UK based (remote); occasional UK travel for team meetings and events
Reports to: CEO
Closing date: Friday 10 April, 5pm
Right to work in the UK required
About FutureDotNow
FutureDotNow is a charity uniting business to close the UK workforce’s essential digital skills gap. We are the leading authority on workforce essential digital skills, with hundreds of organisations signed up to the Workforce Digital Skills Charter and direct reach to more than 2 million people. Yet over 22 million working-age adults still lack at least some digital basics. Closing that gap requires coordinated, high-quality delivery at scale.
FutureDotNow is bringing focus to the digital upskilling needs of working age adults, raising awareness and bringing specificity to the action required whatever sector or role people might work in. We work with business and government to surface and solve systemic issues and provide scalable solutions every organisation can use.
This new senior role sits at the intersection of marketing, communications and commercial development, owning the propositions, pipelines and channels through which we engage and support businesses. You’ll work closely with our CEO and COO and play a significant role shaping and delivering the organisation’s business model and financial sustainability.
Why this role matters
This is an exciting time for FutureDotNow as we enter a new phase of growth and delivery. We’re a small but mighty organisation with a reputation for making a difference. Our 5-year strategy is called Routes to 20 million for good reason. That’s the number of people of working age in the UK that don’t currently have all the essential digital skills and we are working to reach them at scale through their employers and other routes.
This new role will own and deliver FutureDotNow’s growth programme, increasing membership numbers, expanding Charter signatories and building a stronger, more diverse funding base. Ultimately, it’s all about action designed to increase the number of business helping people build their essential digital skills.
You’ll design and deliver strategies to raise awareness of what we call ‘the hidden middle’ among businesses and organisations in the UK. You’ll help businesses see the relevance, inspire them to want to help people of working age build the digital essentials, sell the benefits of being part of the FutureDotNow coalition and provide them with solutions that make doing that as easy as possible.
Key responsibilities
This role’s primary focus is developing our member value proposition and driving growth in both membership and Workforce Digital Skills Charter signatories.
-
Charter & Membership Growth. You will design and execute strategies to significantly grow the number of companies who are signatories to the Workforce Digital Skills Charter and / or FutureDotNow members, alongside strategies that retain and engage the existing community.
-
Membership management. You’ll own and manage the membership pipeline end-to-end, from inbound interest through to conversion, onboarding and retention. You will drive self-service into our processes so it’s easy for organisations to see the value and sign up as members and charter signatories, minimising the need for calls and meetings. For some organisations that extra bit of hand holding to get them over the line will be necessary and, in these circumstances, you’ll act as the front face of FutureDotNow.
-
Member Value Proposition. You will shape and refine our value proposition to members, bringing the features and benefits to life in new and compelling ways that talk to the needs of business in their language. Effectively, you’ll be responsible for ‘productising’ our bank of reports and other resources into tools and solutions and identifying value that may have been overlooked. As part of this, you’ll maintain and develop the FutureDotNow’s training directory so it’s easy for employers to find high-quality training content that already exists.
-
Organisational Maturity Framework Mapping. You’ll lead our work to position the Organisational Maturity Framework as a new way for businesses to understand the journey they may be on and position against peers (ideally creating FOMO along the way). You’ll own the first mapping of existing FutureDotNow tools and solutions to the Organisational Maturity Framework, prioritising quick wins that unlock member action, and developing this into a BAU process.
-
Members Area. You will lead the strategy and delivery of our Members’ Area on the FutureDotNow website, defining the information architecture and content governance. You’ll use WordPress to add new content and keep existing content up-to-date and relevant. You’ll work closely with our Communications and Campaigns Manager to improve both the UX and value offer of the Member’s Area on our website, working with a third-party web development agency when required.
-
Digital Strategies & Campaigns. You will be responsible for setting digital strategies to engage existing members and grow the pipeline of new members and Charter signatories. You’ll create and deliver digital content and campaigns (website, social, email etc.) that drive membership engagement and growth, working with our Communications and Campaigns Manager.
-
Partner Engagement & Storytelling. You will establish efficient ways to engage with partner businesses and key stakeholders. You will work closely with our Communications and Campaigns Manager to create and deliver content that showcases what works and raises the profile of members, including case studies and other compelling content.
-
Data, Insight & CRM. You’ll own our CRM (HubSpot). You’ll use our CRM data, website analytics and member feedback to manage and enhance our value proposition, track engagement, segment the audience, and drive continuous improvement. This will include setting KPIs and monitoring campaign performance and reporting.
-
Empowering others. We have a significant community of influential organisations and individuals, and you’ll be responsible for developing and delivering content that enables us to work through them, making it easy for them to be advocates and encourage their peers to be part of the FutureDotNow coalition.
Skills, experience & attributes
We don’t have big budgets to play with, but we do have creative licence, huge energy for our mission and a powerful community of leading businesses on which to draw. So, we’re looking for an experienced growth-minded marketer, a self-starter with bundles of energy, who thinks strategically and can make things happen.
In return, we’ll offer you a brilliant platform to make a huge impact on a mission of national importance, with your work directly shaping national progress on digital skills.
Essential
-
Strong marketing and sales skills, gained in an environment where success was measured by growth, uptake or revenue, not just outputs, (ideally in a coalition, charity, or industry body).
-
Proven ability building acquisition and retention programmes. You’ll love getting to grips with all the content we have available, translating it into user journeys for our members, slicing and dicing it in new ways that speak to business challenges, and using it to create compelling messaging and campaigns.
-
Strong stakeholder management skills including experience owning commercial conversations, influencing decisionmakers and converting interest into commitment.
-
Strong CRM skills - ideally Hubspot as that’s the platform we use - and you’ll be comfortable using web and other analytics to drive improvement.
-
Confident using a content management system (CMS), ideally WordPress to add and maintain website content.
-
Strong end-to-end project delivery skills, including planning and reporting. You’ll be very organised and methodical, able to balance competing priorities and multiple streams of activity.
-
You’ll be a clear communicator, adept at turning complex ideas into clear, motivating messages in line with brand voice.
-
Experience working with senior leaders from a variety of industries and sectors.
-
And of course you’ll have strong digital capabilities!
Desirable
-
Experience of HubSpot and WordPress.
-
Experience curating or product managing a content directory or learning catalogue.
-
Knowledge of UK digital skills policy and employer led upskilling.
Mindset & values
-
A self-starter; someone that drives for impact and results at pace.
-
Enjoy working in a small, fast-paced organisation, with evolving priorities. Ambiguity won’t phase you. And because we don’t have big budgets (unless you really knock it out of the park and grow our member numbers even faster than we hope!) you’ll like getting stuck in and making a little go a very long way.
-
Collaborative and purpose driven, relentlessly focused on practical action that drives FutureDotNow’s mission forward and helps employers make progress now.
Equality, diversity & inclusion
We’re committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of the UK workforce and to creating an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. If you’re excited by this role but don’t meet 100% of the criteria, we’d still love to hear from you.
Application Process
Our application process is designed to be straightforward and proportionate, while giving candidates a clear opportunity to demonstrate their skills.
-
Stage 1: Submit a CV and short cover note outlining your interest in the role and relevant experience.
-
Stage 2: Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a short initial interview.
-
Stage 3: Candidates progressing from the first interview will be asked to complete a short practical task, reflecting the type of work involved in the role.
-
Stage 4: A final shortlist will be invited to a final interview.
We aim to keep the process clear, fair and respectful of candidates’ time.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.