Senior policy research officer jobs
Certitude is a values-driven charity with over 30 years’ experience supporting people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and those with mental health needs.
We are now seeking a Finance Business Partner to join our Finance team and work closely with operational leaders across supported living, residential, and community-based services. This is a highly visible role, focused on turning financial data into meaningful insight that improves outcomes, strengthens services, and delivers value for money, while remaining aligned with our mission and Charities SORP.
The key responsibilities of the Finance Business Partner include:
- Act as the primary finance contact for defined service localities, providing proactive, trusted business partnering support.
- Produce monthly management accounts with clear variance analysis and insightful commentary on income, staffing, agency usage, sleep-ins, travel, and overhead recovery.
- Support Team Managers with budgeting, reforecasting, cost control, and financial planning aligned to safe staffing and support needs.
- Lead unit economics and service performance analysis, including rota efficiency, voids, empty rooms, and overall service sustainability.
- Work closely with the Development Accountant to ensure pricing models, service charges, and cost allocations accurately reflect the true cost of delivery.
- Build and maintain finance KPI dashboards in collaboration with Operations and the Senior Management Accountant.
- Support bids, retenders, and contract variations by providing robust costings, pricing models, and funding justifications.
- Analyse performance across block, spot, framework, and personal budget contracts, reconciling delivered versus commissioned activity.
- Support commissioner discussions around uplifts linked to inflation, National Living Wage, and changes in acuity.
- Work with the Financial Controller to ensure accurate and timely billing, with correct treatment of restricted, unrestricted, and deferred income.
About Certitude:
With a workforce of around 1,500 colleagues and a turnover of approximately £70m, Certitude combines strong financial foundations with a clear social purpose. While our roots are firmly in London, we are expanding beyond the capital, creating exciting opportunities to shape how financial insight supports sustainable growth and high-quality care.
We are proud of our values and the impact we make, and we are committed to equality, diversity, and creating a great place to work for our colleagues.
The successful candidate will:
- Be part-qualified and actively studying towards a recognised accountancy qualification such as ACCA or CIMA, or equivalent.
- Ideally bring experience from social care or another people-intensive, service-led environment, though strong candidates from other sectors are very much encouraged to apply.
- Have hands-on experience producing management accounts, with the ability to deliver clear, insightful commentary and demonstrate effective finance business partnering in support of budgets and performance.
- Be comfortable working across multiple cost centres and managing an expanding portfolio of services or departments, with the confidence to analyse trends, review financial performance, and present financial information to non-finance stakeholders.
- Be proactive, inquisitive, and willing to challenge the status quo, with the confidence to ask “why” and drive improvement.
This opportunity is being offered on a hybrid basis with the expectation you can visit their Balham High Road office a minimum of two days a week.
Applications will be under constant review before the closing date so please submit your application to our exclusive agent Robertson Bell. Apply now to be considered!
First Give
First Give is a national charity that partners with secondary schools to inspire and equip young people with the knowledge, confidence, and skills to drive change. Through our structured programmes, students explore social issues, connect with charities, and take tangible steps to improve their community.
Empowering and equipping young people to meaningfully contribute to their community is a first step to addressing many of the challenges we face at this time of social disconnection and division. Our vision is of a more generous society where everyone is willing and able to give their time, money and skills to the causes they care about.
Corporate Parnterships Manager
We are seeking a self-motivated and driven Corporate Partnerships Manager to lead on growing and stewarding First Give’s portfolio of high-value funders. This role will focus on developing corporate partnerships and will also support our Campaign Board and major donor activity.
First Give is a small charity, with a growing fundraising team and big ambitions. You will therefore be someone who thrives in a start-up environment, brings new ideas to the table and is comfortable setting up new systems and processes. You will play a pivotal role in shaping First Give’s income growth, working closely with our Head of Philanthropy and the Director. This role will also support key engagement activities, including hosting donors at student-led Final events and facilitating employee volunteering at schools.
This is an exciting opportunity for a confident fundraiser and communicator looking for the next step in their career. Someone who thrives on strategy, storytelling, and social impact.
Contract: Full-time, 35 hours per week. Permanent.
Salary: £40K (+£2K London weighting if applicable)
Location: The successful candidate will be expected to work from our London office or attend in-person meetings and host donors at school Final events for two days per week on average. The remainder of the week can typically be worked remotely, with flexibility as required.
Reporting to: Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships
The students we work with come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and so do we. We want to foster a diverse and inclusive culture, to empower our teams to achieve our vision drawing on the broadest possible range of experiences. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates from minoritised groups currently underrepresented on our executive team, particularly black and minority ethnic and disabled candidates.
Please download the candidate pack for more details, and don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like a chat about the role or any reasonable adjustments we can make before applying: contact details provided in the candidate pack.
Creating opportunities where young people are inspired and empowered to give their time, money or skills to charities and causes that they care about


The Videographer and Photographer role sits within the Brand team. This role captures and edits high-quality video and photography to produce marketing, fundraising and brand assets for the organisation - working independently or collaboratively across multi-team projects.
Overall objectives:
- Create visual assets for our brand portfolio and for marketing materials, working closely with the Creative Manager.
- Support departments with video and photography needs, including Income Generation. This includes assisting partners and external creative agencies and production companies with on-site shoots and coordinating with Operations teams as needed.
- Work collaboratively with the Brand team on large or multi-team projects leading on technical video and photography production.
What we can offer you:
In return for your commitment to our cause and to recognise the value of our employees, Battersea offers a range of benefits to support the wellbeing of our employees. These include:
- 28 days of annual leave (plus 8 days paid public holidays) per year.
- Discounted gym membership and cycle to work schemes.
- Employee Assistance Programme and access to Wellbeing Resources.
- Generous pension contributions - up to 10% employer contribution.
- Free healthcare cash plan, where you can claim for a range of treatment including dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropody and acupuncture every year.
- Annual interest-free season ticket loans.
We are also committed to providing learning and development to our employees. During your time with us, we provide support for your professional and career development, including access to digital and in-person training programmes, leadership and management training, mentoring and much more.
Our hybrid working model:
We operate a 50% onsite hybrid working model, with our office-based staff splitting their time between site based and home working. This enables our office-based staff to balance the benefits of home working with onsite collaboration and maintaining a connection to our cause.
Diversity and inclusion:
We are committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive experience for all staff, volunteers and trustees and those hoping to join us. We operate an anonymised shortlisting process and actively seek to ensure our process is fair and equitable for all.
We understand the value of diverse voices, perspectives, and experiences to help us deliver even more for our dogs and cats, and we welcome applicants from all sections of the community.
As a Disability Confident Committed Employer we will ask about any adjustments you may need at application and/or interview stage, and if you are offered a role with us, we’ll talk to you about any workplace adjustments you may need to help you perform at your best. If you would like to talk more about this, please contact us. Greyscale copies of the recruitment pack are also available on request.
More about us:
At Battersea, we aim to never turn away a dog or cat in need of help. We give each one lots of love, expert care and get to know their characters and quirks so we can find them a new home that’s just right for them. Join us and help us be here for every dog and cat, wherever they are, for as long as they need us.
Acceptable use of AI:
At Battersea, we value expertise. We recognise each candidate that applies to us will have a range of expertise they can offer us, so we want to hear about this in your own words. We understand the support that generative artificial intelligence (AI) software can offer but it can also lead to numerous applications presenting as generic and impersonal. This makes it difficult to gain understanding of your unique experience.
To best showcase yourself, we encourage you to write your responses without the assistance of AI. If you require the use of AI software to aid in completing your application, we ask you use the generative responses as a prompt for writing your answers and avoid copying and pasting. You must also ensure the information presented in your application accurately reflects your experience.
Closing date: 1st March 2026
All applications must be submitted before the closing date advertised. We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications is received.
Interview Date(s):
First round (online) - 11th March 2026
Second round (in person) - 18th March 2026
For full details on the role, please download the recruitment pack from our Careers website.
Battersea is here for every dog and cat, and has been since 1860. We believe that every dog and cat deserves the best.



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