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Safety and Assurance Officer

Location: Homebased, based in the Southern Area

Contract: Full time, permanent

Salary: £32,000 gross per annum

Closing Date: 21 November 2025

Are you a Safety Specialist looking for a new opportunity?

The Marine Society & Sea Cadets (MSSC) is the leading maritime charity for youth development and lifelong learning. We are a vibrant and growing charity inspiring young people to achieve their potential through challenge and nautical adventure and also enabling seafarers and maritime professionals to realise their potential through learning and career development. Working with our employees, cadets, and volunteers, we have built a strong vision and five-year Future Ready strategy to meet the growing demand for what we provide, both for young people, seafarers and maritime professionals – and the thousands who aspire to be the sea cadets and marine professionals of the future. It is also about equipping them to achieve their potential and thrive in a rapidly changing world, while growing our charity to benefit even more people – including those from under-represented or marginalised groups.

We are currently looking for a Safety and Assurance Officer to join our team.

About the role

The Safety & Assurance Officer (SAO) is an employee of the MSSC and a member of the MSSC National Safety Assurance Team (NSAT). This is a home-based role, with a primary focus on the Southern area, predominantly the South-East. The SAO will report to the Head of Safety, Health, and Environment.

The SAO will work closely with other SAOs and will be functionally accountable to:

The Head of Inshore Boating for inshore boat assurance
The Staff Royal Marines Officer for weapons and ammunition safety and security assurance

The role requires regular travel within the area of responsibility and, on occasion within the UK. It will involve evening and some weekend work to fulfil the role’s responsibilities.

Requirements

Qualifications: Good general education and NEBOSH (or equivalent), with completion required during probation if not already held.
Safety & Environmental Management: Experience implementing safety and environmental management systems, conducting risk assessments, and working within formal assurance frameworks.
Incident Management: Experience managing, investigating, and reporting incidents.
Training & Support: Ability to deliver training, guidance, and support to non-specialist staff or volunteers on safety, health, environmental, and assurance matters.
Workload & Volunteer Management: Proven ability to manage a busy workload and effectively support and manage volunteers.

Responsibilities

Join the Marine Society & Sea Cadets as a Safety and Assurance Officer, ensuring the highest standards of safety, health, environment (SHE), and operational compliance across our units and facilities.
You’ll lead assurance inspections, maintain compliance with legislation and organisational regulations, and support the safe management of weapons, armouries, and inshore boating activities. Working closely with other members of the National Safety and Assurance Team (NSAT) and Area teams, you’ll oversee safety at events, camps, and competitions, conduct audits, and monitor incident reporting.
This role plays a vital part in upholding the safety and welfare of our cadets and volunteers through proactive assurance, training, and continuous improvement.

For further information, please download theIf you are interested in this role, please apply now!

Benefits

25 days annual leave per annum, increasing with length of service
Hybrid working for many roles
Volunteering Leave
Life assurance (4x salary)
Private medical insurance
Generous pension (employer contribution up to 10%)
Cycle to work scheme
Access to the Marine Society Digital Library
Wellbeing portal and EAP with 121 counselling
Employee development: We are investing in our employees' development and have an annual calendar of learning and development opportunities, designed to support employees to develop into their roles and stretch them to achieve their full potential.

Additional Information

MSSC positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates from all backgrounds. Equity, diversity, and inclusion really matters to us, so we can best serve our beneficiaries from every community. We work to ensure a fair and consistent recruitment process and aim to be a charity where diversity of experience, identity and skills are valued and welcomed. MSSC is an equal opportunities employer.

We recognise our responsibilities to safeguard and protect the young people and vulnerable adults with whom we work. We do all we can to promote their health, safety and wellbeing, and we expect our staff to share this commitment and work in line with safeguarding policy, the MSSC’s values and ethos of inclusivity. We adhere to safer recruitment practices and therefore employment is subject to detailed pre-employment checks for successful candidates, including references and criminal disclosure checks and the completion of a disclosure questionnaire. 

All successful applicants are required to attend safeguarding training and undergo pre-employment checks including a criminal record check.

JOB PROFILE

JOB TITLE: Lead Trusts & Grants Officer

RESPONSIBLE TO: Senior Trusts & Grants Manager

HOURS OF WORK: Full time 35 hours per week

LOCATION: Home working/ Hybrid

DURATION: Permanent

SALARY / GRADE: £32,330

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

• Senior Trusts & Grants Manager

• Trusts & Grants Officer

• Director of Fundraising, Marketing & Communications

• Chief Operating Officer

• Senior Leadership & Service Managers

• Grant making trusts and foundations

• Major Donors

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The Lead Trusts & Grants Officer is responsible for developing and delivering income from mid-value grant making funders, notably trusts and foundations. The role involves managing a dedicated pipeline of opportunities, writing and submitting compelling applications, and stewarding funder relationships. This position works closely with service teams to understand project needs and create accurate budgets and impactful funding proposals. This role will also provide direct line management to the Trusts & Grants Officer, supporting their professional development and ensuring the team's overall success in meeting fundraising targets.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Fundraising and Grants Management

• Pipeline Management: Lead on prospecting, developing and managing the mid-value trusts and grants pipeline, focusing on bids around £20,000 - £70,000, including multiyear grants, ensuring a consistent flow of opportunities to meet team income targets. Developing the skills and ability to manage higher value and more complex strategic bids.

• Application Writing: Develop and submit compelling, high-quality grant applications and proposals for mid-value funders, working closely with service teams, ensuring accurate budgets and income against Adoption UK’s strategic priorities.

• Stewardship: Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with a portfolio of new and existing mid-value funders, providing timely and impactful reports to secure renewed funding, and developing relationships with key external contacts through excellent communication.

• Reporting: Oversee the accurate tracking of all applications, reports, and communications using team tracking methods, and the CRM database, providing regular progress updates to the Senior Trusts & Grants Manager.

• Collaboration: Work closely with the Senior Trusts & Grants Manager, the Trusts & Grants Officer, and service teams, to align fundraising activities with the organisation’s strategic priorities and annual income targets.

• Undertake other duties and projects as directed by the Senior Trusts & Grants Manager and Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Communications.

Team Management and Development

• Line Management: Provide line management and support to the Trusts & Grants Officer, including regular one-to-ones, appraisals, and professional development.

• Training and Mentoring: Guide the Trusts & Grants Officer on best practices for researching, writing, budgets, and stewarding of small-value grants.

Personal specification

Knowledge and experience

• Track record of successfully securing individual grant awards typically ranging between £10,000 and £50,000. (E)

• Knowledge of fundraising sector with specialist knowledge of grant making trusts and foundations, or similar grant/bid-writing experience (E)

• Experience in writing persuasive proposal documents and bids (E)

• Experience in developing and implementing fundraising policies and process to deliver strategic goals (E)

• Experience in supporting service teams to deliver complex projects on time and to budget (E)

• Experience in successfully stewarding multiple stakeholders including grant managers and major donors (D)

Qualifications and Education

• Graduate level or equivalent significant professional experience in fundraising/bid

Skills and abilities

• Ability to make decisions within area of responsibility, based on defined frameworks, policies, and procedures and/or based on knowledge of regulations and best practice (E)

• Shows good professional judgement (E)

• Can successfully operate matrix management of complex projects at a national level (E)

• Delivers high quality work with minimal supervision and direction (E)

• Able to communicate clearly and engage with stakeholders at all levels (E)

• Is successful in securing positive external relationships with stakeholders and supporters (E)

• Demonstrates personal credibility (E)

• Demonstrates experience and ability in impact reporting (D)

• Ability to research the sector to identify the best prospects (D)

• Has the capacity to deal with complex issues and is good at problem solving (D)

• An exceptional administrator with excellent organisational and writing skills (E)

• Self-starter, used to working to deadlines and delivering against KPIs (D)

Accountability

• Shows previous experience of achievement of income targets (E)

• Shows previous experience of excellent funder or similar relationship stewardship (E)

• Able to contribute to the development of income growth strategy and strategic goals (D)

Behaviours

• Takes pride in Adoption UK and promotes its values and mission in all interactions with external stakeholders.

• Demonstrates commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of role at all times.

• Contributes to an open and honest culture

• Encourages challenge and creativity, transparency and consistency.

• Leads by example.

• Offers outstanding service to members.

• Promotes cross-functional team working, sharing skills and knowledge

• Communicates clearly, seeking clarity when unclear and valuing the opinion of others.

• Values the opinion of others. Treating colleagues and other stakeholders with respect.

• Takes pride in own development, committed to achieving high standards and agreed objectives.