Permanent jobs for the Charity Support sector

We are looking for an entrepreneurial leader to relaunch and build the next phase of the UK Democracy Network: a national network that helps organisations working to strengthen democracy across the UK connect, collaborate and coordinate more effectively.

This is a rare opportunity to shape a growing national network. The Network already has strong foundations, sector backing, and three years of core funding secured. The next step is building it into an independent, trusted and influential organisation that helps the democracy sector work together more effectively.

About the Network

The Democracy Network exists to help make collaboration across the democracy sector more effective. It connects organisations, practitioners and professionals across the UK democracy ecosystem, helping to reduce duplication, strengthen relationships, share intelligence, and enable more coordinated collective action.

About the host organisations

The Network is jointly incubated by two organisations with deep roots in UK civic tech, democratic education, and sector-wide network building:

The Politics Project supports young people to use their voice by giving them access to brilliant democratic education. They work with young people, teachers, youth practitioners and politicians to help them learn about, teach and actively participate in democracy. The Politics Project also leads the Democracy Classroom Network, a sister network of over 100 organisations across the democracy, education and youth sectors which support over 3,500 teachers and youth practitioners to engage young people in democracy.

Democracy Club produces the most comprehensive election data in the UK. Established in 2010 and registered as a Community Interest Company in 2015, it runs the national polling station finder Where Do I Vote and candidate lookup service Who Can I Vote For, serving election information to millions of UK voters each year and supplying data to the Electoral Commission. Democracy Club brings a mailing list of 35,000, an active community of 1,200 volunteer contributors collaborating on election information, and strong digital and data expertise to the Network.

Our vision for the Network

Over the last year, we have carried out extensive consultation with members of the UK Democracy Network, the Network’s Steering Group and funders. Through this process, we have developed a new vision for the Network that is designed to reflect and support the diversity of the democracy sector, and the wide range of approaches, perspectives and organisations within it.

Our model is built around a series of smaller thematic, geographic and demographic-based “hubs” within the wider Network. These hubs will create spaces for organisations and individuals working on particular issues, in particular places, or with specific communities to collaborate more effectively, while remaining connected to the wider democracy ecosystem.

Alongside this, the Network will support stronger coordination and information sharing across the sector through activities such as a monthly bulletin, shared events, an annual conference and practical tools and databases that help partners collaborate more effectively.

Importantly, we want to build on and strengthen the excellent work that already exists across the democracy landscape, rather than duplicate it. Over time, we also hope the Network can help incubate and support new hubs and collaborations around emerging issues and opportunities within the democracy sector.

About the role

The Network will be delivered by a small core team: a Network Director (this role), a Network Manager (in post), and a Network Coordinator (to be recruited).

Our medium-term ambition is for the Network to become an independent organisation in its own right. We see this role as central to shaping that transition, with the successful candidate expected to lead the Network into its next phase as an independent organisation over the course of the grant period. 

Key responsibilities

The Network Director provides overall leadership of the Network and is responsible for its long-term sustainability and strategic direction. 

Specifically: 

• Strategic leadership. Set strategic direction for the Network in consultation with members, hosts and the Steering Group / Board.

• Represent the Network. In networking and fundraising events, high-level roundtables and in high-profile relationships with government, funders, media and sector leaders.

• Lead on fundraising. Develop relationships with major funders, alongside Harriet Andrews at The Politics Project, building a diversified, sustainable funding base.

• Oversee the Network's transition to an independent legal structure. Support the establishment of the Board, working with Harriet Andrews and Sym Roe to recruit members with a mix of professional expertise and elected network representatives.

• Build an inclusive, supportive team culture. Line manage the Network Manager and Network Coordinator.

• Oversee monitoring and evaluation. Lead reporting to funders, and support the annual review process with the team and Steering Group / Board.

Person specification

We are looking for a values-driven, experienced, strategic leader. They will have strong people and financial management skills, and the ability to build trusted relationships across the democracy sector. They will be an excellent communicator, comfortable leading through complexity and change, and motivated by a commitment to strengthening UK democracy. 

The postholder will be expected to work in-office two days a week and attend regular in-person engagements in London.

Benefits

• 33 days’ annual leave pro rata, including Bank Holidays (with three days off between Christmas and New Year).

• 4% employer pension contribution.

• 2 working days / 15 hours of volunteer leave a year.

• Cycle to Work scheme.

Further information about the role and job specification can be found in the Candidate Recruitment Pack.

Equity, diversity and inclusion

The UK democracy sector has historically been less diverse than the country it serves, and we want to help change that, starting with how we recruit. We particularly welcome applications from people who are underrepresented in democracy sector leadership, including people of colour, disabled people and people from working-class backgrounds.

How to apply

Please apply via charity job with the following:

• Your CV (no more than two pages).

• A supporting statement of no more than 500 words, setting out how your experience, skills and knowledge meet the person specification and why you are drawn to this role.

The closing date is 11.30pm, Sunday 14th June 2026.

We will shortlist on the basis of the supporting statement against the person specification.

Ready to define what “good” looks like and make it real across our services?

Hft has turned a corner. After navigating a period of significant financial and operational challenge, we have delivered a major turnaround, reducing a £17 million deficit, stabilising our workforce, and restoring confidence across every level of the organisation.

Now, with a new and focused Executive Team working closely with our Senior Leadership Teams, clear governance, and a collective understanding of the need to embed sustainable improvement across all areas of the organisation, we are moving from recovery to transformation.

The Opportunity

You will lead the development and delivery of an integrated, organisation-wide approach to quality, safety, safeguarding and great practice. Your focus will be on ensuring people are supported to live safe, meaningful and aspirational lives. This role brings together quality assurance, safeguarding, safety and practice into a clear and consistent approach across a complex, national organisation.

You will drive and oversee quality, safety and governance systems that support them. You will maintain clear oversight of performance, risk and compliance, and provide assurance, insight and challenge to the Executive Team and the Board. You will ensure regulatory compliance, safeguarding, and health and safety systems are robust, responsive, and consistently upheld, but, importantly, rooted in the understanding that all of this is to make sure that the people supported have great lives.

Working closely with operational leaders, you will identify underperformance and support improvement. You will use data, audits, incidents, and feedback to generate insights and drive continuous improvement. You will also help shape a shared understanding of what great practice looks like across services.

If you have senior leadership experience across quality, safety, safeguarding and practice within a learning disability charity or social care provider, we would love to hear from you. Please refer to the candidate brief attachment for full details of the role.

Please note: This role is a Home-based position (travel 3 times per month to Bristol/other locations)

What you will bring to succeed in this role

Essential

• Senior leadership experience across quality, safety, safeguarding and practice within a large learning disability charity or social care provider
• Accountable experience of leading operational health and safety within a multi-site, CQC regulated care environment
• Ability to lead and develop high-performing teams
• Experience of providing clear assurance and reporting on health and safety performance, risks and compliance to senior leadership and/or Board
• Communication and influencing skills, with the ability to work across organisational boundaries
• Experience embedding co-production and lived experience into organisational approaches
• Highly developed analytical skills and ability to use data to drive decisions
• Confident in leading change, improvement and cultural development

Selection Process

We will be shortlisting applications on an ongoing basis. If your application is shortlisted, we will invite you to a pre-screening interview with a member of the senior hiring team. If you are successful at this stage, the final assessment process will include a competency-based interview, a presentation, and the opportunity to meet with key stakeholders to get to know the team and Hft.

As part of our recruitment process, we are proud to include the voices of people with learning disabilities. You will meet them throughout the process, and they will play a key role in the final stages of selection. Their perspective shapes how we lead, listen and make decisions at Hft.

We anticipate the following timelines:

• Closing date: 9 June 2026
• Pre-screening interviews: 12, 15 or 16 June 2026
• Final assessment: 30 June 2026

We may close this role early if we receive a high volume of applications, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

We are committed to recruiting people from diverse backgrounds and believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce helps us better support the people we work with to live their best lives. If there is anything we can do to support you to do your best during the application and selection process, please contact our recruitment team at Hft.

Location: Loughborough, England (Travel required to all Baca Services locations)

Contract Type: Permanent

Salary: £26,750 per annum

Working Hours: 37.5 hrs per week (including evening and weekend hours on a rota)

Start date: June 2026

About Us:

Baca is dedicated to providing support and care to 16 to 18 year old unaccompanied asylum seeking children who are newly arrived in the country, helping them rebuild their strength, dignity, and hope for the future. We work closely with social workers and representatives from other agencies to benefit the young people in our care.

Role Overview:

As a Support Worker, you will be a key worker for several young people in Baca's care, providing high-quality holistic and therapeutic support for their transition to adulthood. You will deliver services in line with Baca’s Theory of Change, ensuring the highest quality outcomes in physical and emotional wellbeing, education, employment, training, social engagement, and personal safety.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support young people using trauma-informed approaches (including PACE and recovery models)
• Promote safety and safeguard young people from exploitation and harm
• Support emotional wellbeing, independence, and life skills development
• Encourage engagement in education, training, and community activities
• Maintain accurate and compliant records
• Work closely with social workers, schools, and partner agencies
• Contribute to a reflective, learning-focused team culture
• Be a role model, offering care and compassion without discrimination.
• Plan and participate in day trips and annual residential weeks.

Requirements:

• Alignment with Baca’s values and mission.
• Ability to respond to change and work as part of a diverse team.
• Self-motivated, proactive, and able to take initiative.
• Knowledge of safeguarding practices and issues faced by unaccompanied asylum-seeking, young people.
• Relevant training or willingness to complete essential training within the first year.
• Experience working with young people, especially in cross-cultural settings.
• Excellent communication, organisational, and ICT skills.
• Driving licence and access to a car.
• Enhanced DBS check required.

Personal Attributes:

• Approachable, reliable, and a strong team worker.
• Supportive, responsible, and personable.
• Flexible and able to work occasional evenings and weekends.

Holidays and benefits:

• 33 days’ holiday a year (pro rata for part-time staff) including bank holidays.
• Pension scheme
• Health & Wellbeing programme
• Free parking
• Casual dress

How to Apply:

If you are passionate about making a difference in the lives of young asylum seekers and have the skills and attributes we are looking for, we would love to hear from you.

Please note: You must have the right to work in the UK for this role as Baca is not on the Home Office list.

Senior Service Designer  

 
Location: remote. This role can be based at any of Barnardo's national offices. Regular local and national travel will be required. 
 

Help us design services that transform childhoods  

At Barnardo's, we believe every child deserves a safe, happy and hopeful future. For over 150 years, we've been innovating to improve the lives of children, young people and families across the UK. Today, we run more than 800 services and are committed to making them excellent, inclusive and designed with the children, young people and families who use them. 

As a senior member of the Service Design team, you will play a vital role in applying service design methods to deliver measurable improvements in service quality, efficiency, value and outcomes for children, young people and families. 

We are continuing to strengthen how we design and improve services across Barnardo's, working across a complex and evolving portfolio that spans children's services, digital delivery and business development. 

This role offers the opportunity to shape not only individual services, but how service design is used to support decision-making, prioritisation and innovation across the organisation. 

This is a hands-on role as well as a strategic one – you'll be actively designing, prototyping and iterating services as well as shaping direction and decision-making. 

As a Senior Service Designer, you will: 

• Work across a portfolio of projects, balancing priorities and adapting to changing organisational needs 

• Contribute to service development and proposals, working with business development colleagues to shape service models 

• Influence decision-making and prioritisation, using evidence and insight to guide direction 

• Identify opportunities to improve services in ways that deliver better outcomes, greater efficiency and value for money 

• Lead the end-to-end design of services in complex environments, shaping user-centred, evidence-based solutions that respond to organisational priorities, and creating service maps, blueprints, prototypes and other design artefacts to bring ideas to life 

• Test and iterate service concepts in response to feedback and learning, refining solutions to improve outcomes 

• Ensure services are coherent and integrated across online and offline channels 

• Work across functions including business development, digital, finance, operations, research and policy to engage stakeholders and support organisational change 

• Mentor and support colleagues – developing confidence and skills, with the potential to provide line management support to junior designers where appropriate 

• Develop practice and contribute to standards, frameworks and reusable design patterns 

• Share learning internally and externally, contributing to professional communities of practice and helping raise the profile of service design at Barnardo's 

This is a varied, hands-on and project-focused role that allows for autonomy, creativity and real impact. You'll be part of a warm, committed team that shares learning, supports wellbeing, and is united in a clear mission: designing for better outcomes for children and families. 

You'll work with a high degree of autonomy, navigating complexity and ambiguity, delivering tangible improvements to services and contributing to a growing and evolving design practice. 

What We're Looking For 

We're looking for a Senior Service Designer who can: 

• Work autonomously to lead the design of complex services 

• Manage competing priorities effectively across projects, balancing time, focus and trade-offs 

• Influence stakeholders and support organisational change beyond immediate project teams, communicating design decisions and complex ideas clearly to a range of audiences 

• Understand how services operate within wider organisational systems, and use this to inform decision-making and support effective change 

• Confidently use a range of evidence, including user research, service data and performance insights, to inform decisions and guide direction 

• Conduct in-depth user research to generate actionable insights and guide decision-making 

• Create and iterate prototypes and other design artefacts 

• Integrate offline and online service delivery into coherent end-to-end services 

• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops with a range of stakeholders and partners 

• Evaluate and evidence the impact of service design work

Previous experience in children's services, health, education or related public/third sector contexts is desirable – but if you bring transferable skills, we want to hear from you. 

What You'll Get in Return 

• 26 days annual leave (rising with service) plus bank holidays 

• Access to the Barnardo's pension scheme 

• Flexible working and hybrid/remote options 

• Wellbeing initiatives and Employee Assistance Programme 

• Regular supervision and career development opportunities 

• The opportunity to shape how service design is used across a national organisation 

• The chance to work on services that support children, young people and families across the UK.

Inclusion and Belonging 

We are committed to building a diverse workforce. We particularly welcome applications from disabled candidates, LGBTQ+ people, people from racially minoritised communities, and those with care experience. If there's anything we can do to support you through the application process, please let us know. 

 Ready to Apply?

Together, we can change childhoods and change lives.

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification and Job Description.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date.  We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Job Title: Modern Slavery Safehouse Advocate

Position type: 1 Full-time position (37.5 hours), based in the West Midlands

Salary: £25,287.91 - £27,993.18

Closing date: 19 June 2026

All interviews will be held via Microsoft Teams

Is this you?

We are looking for a highly skilled Modern Slavery Safehouse Advocate with excellent communication skills, compassion and understanding of the impact of abuse and exploitation.

We are looking for an innovative candidate who has experience of working with adults, who have experienced trauma and abuse.

This is a great opportunity for someone who enjoys problem solving and developing their leadership skills.

The Role:

The successful candidate will provide a high-quality frontline service to both female and male victims of Modern Slavery (international human trafficking) and their children within the West Midlands area. You will be involved in all aspects of case management including: risk assessment, needs assessment, journey planning, outcomes and case review when supporting clients through their recovery and reflection period. You will also be involved in all aspects of accommodation, including; health and safety, requesting maintenance support, ensuring fire safety etc.

Job Title: Regional Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA)

Location: Sandwell, Walsall, Dudley (location to be confirmed)

Position available: 1 full-time position (37.5 hours)

Salary: £25,282.44 - £28,861.62 (dependent upon qualifications and experience)

Closing date: 19 June 2026

BCWA reserve the right to close this advert before the closing date

All interviews will be held via Microsoft Teams

Is this you?

We are looking for a qualified/unqualified IDVA (training may be provided for the right candidate) to join our dynamic team.

We are looking for someone with experience of supporting victims/survivors of domestic abuse, managing a caseload and understanding the principles of safeguarding children and adults. The post holder will have a good understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse and how this can affect victims.

The Role:

Our Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVA) provide a high quality frontline domestic abuse support service to those at high risk of harm. As an IDVA, you will support victims of domestic abuse to assess level of risk, inform victims of their options and develop tailored safety plans to protect the victim and their children. You will work within a multi-agency framework to advocate for the victim, including responding and reporting to Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC) on behalf of the victim.

The role also supports the empowerment of victims/survivors, assisting them to recognise the dynamics of domestic abuse present in their own situation through one to one support and group work, to help them regain control of their lives. 

Job Title: Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) – Male Victims Only

Position available: 1 full-time position (37.5 hours), available to male and female applicants

Salary: £25,282.44 - £28,861.62 (dependent upon qualifications and experience)

Closing date: 19 June 2026

BCWA reserve the right to close this advert before the closing date

All interviews will be held via Microsoft Teams

Is this you?

We are looking for a qualified/unqualified IDVA (training may be provided for the right candidate) to join our dynamic team.

We are looking for someone with experience of supporting victims/survivors of domestic abuse, managing a caseload and understanding the principles of safeguarding children and adults. The post holder will have a good understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse and how this can affect victims.

This is a challenging role that requires empathy, compassion, excellent interpersonal and caseload management skills, a client-centred approach and proactive crisis intervention.

The Role:

Our Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVA) provide a high-quality frontline domestic abuse support service to those at high risk of harm. IDVAs support victims of domestic abuse to assess level of risk, inform victims of their options and develop tailored safety plans to protect the victim and their children. They work within a multi-agency framework to advocate for the victim, including responding to and reporting to Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC) on behalf of the victim.

The role supports the empowerment of victims/survivors, assisting them to recognise the dynamics of domestic abuse present in their own situation through one-to-one support and group work, to help them regain control of their lives. 

If you are self-driven, compassionate and hardworking with lots of ambition we would love to hear from you.