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The Humane League UK (THL UK) is seeking a strategically-minded leader and manager for our Programmes team. Reporting to the Managing Director and sitting within the Senior Leadership team, the successful candidate will be passionate about The Humane League UK’s mission of ending the abuse of animals raised for food.

The primary focus of this role is to be an integrator, combining corporate, political and public pressure into one coherent and impactful programme of work. This means supporting, enabling and leading our team in planning and delivering effective, innovative and courageous projects and campaigns which are prioritised for maximum impact per pound, and ensuring robust evaluations of that work so we can learn and adapt our approaches.

As Head of the Programmes Team, you will ensure close collaboration with other teams at THL UK to deliver successful results for the animals. Working closely with other Senior Leadership Team members, you’ll provide strategic thinking and actively contribute to the development of the charity.

With strong values-driven leadership and programme management skills, you’ll need to be well organised, efficient and a good problem-solver. You’ll also bring the skills needed to balance multiple workflows simultaneously, and be able to navigate both being nimble and adaptive to emerging needs with the need to forward-plan and bring longer term clarity to our programmes.

The Humane League UK (THL UK) is a charity ending the abuse of animals raised for food by influencing the policies of the world's biggest companies, demanding legislation, and empowering others to take action. 

Thanks to our effectiveness, The Humane League has been named Top Charity by the independent evaluator Animal Charity Evaluators for every rating period since 2012.

THL UK is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to furthering equity and inclusion, and we value diversity. We seek people from a wide range of backgrounds who will bring a fresh perspective to the team, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes us stronger. 

We make employment decisions by matching our organisational needs with the skills and experience of candidates, irrespective of race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, neurodiversity, age, or veteran status.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer, demonstrating our commitment to recruiting, retaining, and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, based on their skills and talent.

You can read more about how The Humane League UK is working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on our website.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, please contact us via our website and we will be happy to discuss, via email or telephone, reasonable adjustments that you may require throughout the process.

How you will make a difference:

Strategy and leadership

• Set the direction and lead THL UK’s programmes strategy, and turn the Theory of Change into plans, targets, budgets, and impact evaluations.

• Take shared responsibility for THL UK as a whole, not just Programmes, working with fellow Senior Leadership Team members on organisation-wide strategy, culture and resourcing, and modelling clear, accountable and evidence-led decision-making.

• Make clear calls on where resources go across our workflows for maximum impact, including making sound judgments between when to seize live opportunities vs when to prioritise slower-burn planned work.

• Build a culture where team members feel trusted to take ownership, challenge constructively, and feel safe to innovate and experiment to effectively and relentlessly build pressure on key targets.

Campaigns and influencing

• Oversee corporate and public campaigns that build the right pressure that results in welfare commitments and implementation, planned as one joined-up effort across corporate relations, public affairs and in collaboration with the Communications team.

• Oversee our influencing of UK and devolved governments, parliamentarians and regulators, identifying where policy can lock in and extend corporate wins.

• Own decisions on high-risk tactics, signing off campaign targets, escalation strategies and legal and reputational risk assessments.

• Support ambitious targets to attract and mobilise large numbers of new and existing supporters and volunteers.

Impact, evidence, fundraising and learning

• Set and monitor programme goals and success measures that connect activities to outcomes for animals.

• Oversee how company and industry insights are gathered, banked and shared internally, and ensure company progress is tracked and can be publicly reported.

• Commission research and investigations that strengthen our campaigns and credibility.

• Build and oversee routines for evaluating and reviewing what worked and sharing lessons across teams.

• Ensure our Development team can fundraise effectively by developing funding needs, budgets, cases for support, clear plans, impact measurement, etc., and champion our fundraising efforts with the Programmes team, from supporting funding applications and clear impact evidence/reports, to meeting/stewarding some of our donors and funders.

People, partnerships and resources

• Line manage programme managers/leads, and build a high-performing, inclusive, collaborative team that looks after its wellbeing and resilience.

• Manage the Programmes budget and keep spending aligned with priorities.

• Work with THL in the US/global, Open Wing Alliance partners and other allies to align UK priorities with international campaigns, and share learning in all directions.

• Act as a senior spokesperson for THL UK with media, industry, coalitions and the wider movement.

Wider responsibilities

• Attend conferences, events and protests as required.

• Attend in-person team workshops several times a year.

• Take on other duties as reasonably requested, in line with the seniority of the role.

• Help us make THL UK an inclusive workplace where employees and supporters are proud to be members of the movement.

• Demonstrate commitment to creating a stronger and more effective animal protection movement through inclusion and belonging, recognising the need for all of us to do better for social justice on a personal and organisational level.

Who we are looking for:

Competencies (essential):

Leadership: You lead with integrity and mutual respect, and inspire trust and confidence in people from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of experience. You own outcomes and follow through. You share credit, welcome challenges, and work well across teams, departments, partners and allies.

Management: You act as a leader of the whole organisation, not just your department. You build high-performing teams, structure roles so people can succeed, give honest and useful feedback, and develop and motivate your team. You care about wellbeing, especially given the emotional demands of this work.

Strategic: You look at consequences and interdependencies over the short and long term, and turn plans into delivery with clear responsibilities. You are comfortable prioritising, including saying no to impactful opportunities that aren’t on the right path.

Thought leadership: You are an informed voice on campaigning, corporate engagement and political influence, and the go-to person internally for programme strategy. You keep building your knowledge of tactics, drawing on colleagues across THL UK and the wider movement.

Communication: You write, present and speak clearly and persuasively, and adapt your tone to the audience.

Problem solving and decision making: You listen actively, think critically, structure complex problems well and anticipate needs. You use evidence and data to make sound, actionable decisions, on your own when needed and with others.

Tenacity: You stay steady under pressure and remain confident in difficult or confrontational situations.

Skills and experience (essential):

• You will have a strong track record of planning and overseeing campaigns that combine corporate, political and public pressure, using a theory of change and evidence to decide which lever to pull and when.

• You will have experience of turning strategy into well-run programmes, including setting objectives, plans and budgets, tracking delivery and risk, and using monitoring, evaluation and learning to show impact.

• You will have experience of leading and line-managing others.

• You will have built trust with, and negotiated with, senior people in business and/or government, while holding firm on what matters.

• You will be a confident public speaker, including on camera, and comfortable with pressure campaigning and leading public campaign actions.

Desirable:

• Experience leading and managing a team with diverse roles, and/or remote teams.

• Leadership and management qualifications.

• Knowledge of farmed animal welfare, the UK food industry or UK and devolved policy.

• Experience in one or more of the following: senior campaigning, public affairs, a lobbying or influencing role, engaging/working with large food/FMCG companies or an adjacent industry, MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning).

Hours:

As an organisation we work a four day work week. This is a full time position of 30 hours per week over Monday to Thursday.

Good to know:

You will have access to:

• A fully remote work environment and team (all equipment is provided)
• A 4 day working week 
• 20 days leave plus 8 days for bank holidays that can be used at a time of your choice
• Flexible working hours
• A workplace pension
• An annual learning and development budget
• Support for mental and physical wellbeing 
• £25 per month reimbursement towards home working costs

At The Humane League UK, animal welfare is at the forefront of our everyday work and as such, many of our employees are vegan by personal choice. All of our events and workshops offer only plant-based meals. We welcome all mission-aligned candidates to apply, no matter where you are in your journey to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

We are looking to speak to a wide range of candidates with diverse backgrounds - #NonGraduatesWelcome

Our employees all work remotely but still enjoy a supportive, collaborative environment.

For our salaries to be fair, transparent and equitable we want to provide a system that delivers a competitive salary in the market and could eliminate potential biases in compensation (such as the gender pay gap). For more information about the Head of Programmes salary please the attached document.

All applicants need to be:

1. Fluent in written and spoken English.
2. Live and have the right to work in the UK (we are unable to consider applications from those without the right to work in the UK).
3. Committed to our mission to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

The Process:

All applicants will be contacted within one week of the closing date to let you know if you have been successful in reaching the next stage.

Our full interview process comprises of the following stages:

• A skills test to give us an opportunity to see your skills in action (completed remotely).
• Join an online interview (via video call) so we can learn more about each other.
• Final Interview (via video call as above)

For full details of our recruitment process please see the attached document.