19 Childhood jobs

Closing Date: 28 September 2025
Ref 7149

We're looking for a visionary leader to co-lead our work in England and at Westminster. Working alongside another Head of England & Westminster (mat leave cover), you'll oversee a team that:

• Works in partnership with others to ensure children and families have the day to day support they need – whether that's access to their local baby bank, a grant from Save the Children to help them get by, or support from organisations that can help them
• Campaign for an end to child poverty alongside children, young people and their families – regionally, nationally, and on reserved issues that affect children across the UK

You'll build a high-performing England & Westminster team, oversee our national influencing and hold senior stakeholder relationships, proactively secure funding for our work in England, and ensure our work in communities is impactful and connected to our influencing. The roles are also part of the Leadership Team responsible for our impact for children and families in the UK, and our Corporate Senior Leadership Team.

The role will work on influencing, communities and partnerships work so they can represent the entirety of what Save the Children does in England and at Westminster, with responsibilities clearly split with the other post. However, we are looking for the successful post-holder to have more of a community development and grant giving background as the current post holder has more of a policy / influencing one. 

About Us 
Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach. 

About the Team 
This part of the organisation influences debates, opinion, and policies in favour of children's rights. We use powerful evidence and thought leadership to build advocacy strategies that ensure governments know about the problems we have identified and the solutions. We work with children, families, campaigners, and partners across many organisations to secure change. We create and disseminate engaging media content about children's lives to shape debates, put pressure on decisionmakers and build public support. 

The Head of England & Westminster is based in our UK Impact (UKI) department. The department is responsible for driving the delivery of the UK Impact goal in our strategy. Our vision is to make sure families in the UK have the money, services, and power to end child poverty. It's our mission to help build communities of people who care about children, listen to what's important to them and work together to make things better. 

About the Role 
In this role, you will: 

• Lead and develop a high-performing team, creating a culture of trust, inclusion and growth.
• Drive delivery of our England and Westminster change strategy to reduce child poverty.
• Lead place-based approaches that strengthen local systems for children and families.
• Ensure national advocacy and local programmes work hand in hand, with children's voices at the centre.
• Build and influence senior-level relationships with government, funders, charities, media and opinion formers.
• Use political and policy insight to shape strategies in England and across the UK.
• Champion equality, diversity and inclusion across all areas of work.
• Act as a credible spokesperson, representing Save the Children UK externally, including in the media.
• Lead fundraising and innovative ventures that combine income generation with social impact.
• Play a key role in the collective leadership of the UK Impact department.

We are looking for someone with the following experience, competencies, and skills: 

• Proven ability to set clear direction, effectively prioritise a large and complex workload, plan and implement change strategies, manage varied expectations and deadlines, and adapt plans when context change based on data, evidence and professional judgement.
• Significant experience of leading and line managing a high-performing, multi-disciplinary team including supervising, motivating and developing direct reports
• Ability to think and plan strategically, with evidence of securing significant practice and policy changes through the successful design and execution of integrated change strategies covering research, advocacy, policy and practice
• Ability to share and apply learning in order to continuously improve effectiveness, working within a collective impact framework
• Experience of holding a wide range of senior external contacts – including civil servants, senior ministers, parliamentarians, national decision-makers, media, funders - and evidence of influencing for impact
• Significant knowledge and understanding of the political, policy and practice sectors, frameworks and trends in England.
• Significant knowledge of equalities, diversity and inclusion, and how to apply this in order to maximise our external impact and strengthen our internal culture
• Understanding of the causes of child poverty and broad knowledge of the evidence about effective approaches to reducing and ending it
• Experience of building and sustaining relationships, partnerships and networks at a senior level, with individuals and organisations that result in securing new opportunities for the organisation and deliver results
• Experience of securing funding

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Location & Ways of Working:
The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but at times you will be required to come to your contracted office (usually between 2–4 days per month, depending on the needs of your role, team, or service). For many roles, this is likely to be the minimum required to deliver impact.
This will be discussed and agreed with your manager / team and we encourage candidates to discuss our ways of working in more detail at interview stage.

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense. 

Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: 
Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think. 

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT or in an LGBT family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.