Policy manager jobs in basildon, essex

Contract: 1.0 FTE (37.5 hours per week), permanent with 6-month probation period

Salary: £56,650-70,000 per annum, depending on experience

Location: Remote working, with option to use co-working space

Start Date: As soon as possible

Reports to: Executive Director

Please note: You must have the right to work in the UK.

How to Apply

Closing Date: 4th January 2026 (23:59 GMT)

To apply, please submit the following: 

• Cover letter (maximum 2 pages)

• CV

Due to the volume of applications, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you have not heard from us within two weeks of the closing date, your application has not been successful on this occasion.

About BASIC

BASIC is an independent, non-profit think tank working to safeguard humanity and Earth's ecosystem from nuclear risks and interconnected security threats, for generations to come. Our vision is for a global security consensus founded on multilateralism, the recognition of the indivisibility of security, adherence to Earth's planetary boundaries, and consideration of future generations.

For nearly 40 years, we have built a global reputation for groundbreaking dialogue and incisive thought leadership to strengthen international peace and security. We are an intellectually and culturally diverse team of 20 expert-practitioners with deep institutional experience, headquartered in London with additional presences in Berlin and Rome. We are independent, receive no core funding from any state, and our project work is funded transparently.

BASIC's approach to resolving contemporary nuclear dynamics is centred on dialogue as both a practice and a philosophy. We interpret dialogue broadly, recognising that meaningful engagement takes many forms: from facilitating direct strategic conversations between adversaries grounded in conflict resolution principles, to developing networks and diplomatic initiatives that build consensus around shared objectives, to shaping the intellectual foundations of policy discourse through rigorous research and thought leadership.

BASIC is a fast-paced and rewarding environment with an exceptionally positive and inclusive team culture. We have experienced rapid growth over the past decade and are well-suited to people who are motivated by our mission, able to work at a sustained pace, keen to develop professionally, and enjoy being part of a collaborative team working on consequential issues.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary with room for growth

• 30 days annual leave (pro rata), plus bank holidays and closure days over the December festive period

• Employer pension contributions of 5% (above the national minimum)

• Flexible working arrangements, with set days (Wednesdays required) but flexibility on hours

• Remote working with option to use co-working space

• 1-2 all-staff in-person team away day per year, as well as other in-person working opportunities

• Opportunities for professional growth and development

• Excellent team culture built on respect, openness, and inclusion

The Role

BASIC is seeking a hands-on Financial Controller to lead our finance function during a period of sustained growth. The Financial Controller will work across Programme teams ensuring strong financial management and reporting to funding partners, maintain strong financial controls, ensure compliance with charity finance regulations, and provide accurate financial reporting to our Directors and Board of Trustees.

The Financial Controller will oversee the small finance team, including line management of a Finance Assistant and management of an external bookkeeper consultant. This team will be responsible for the majority of financial accounting, processing payroll, and accurate bookkeeping, for which the Financial Controller will be ultimately accountable.

The role includes managing restricted and unrestricted funds in accordance with funder requirements and programme needs, preparing statutory accounts for external audit, and overseeing payroll processing. This role reports directly to the Executive Director to prepare annual budgets and financial strategy, and works closely with the Board's Financial Development Committee to present its implementation.

The ideal candidate will be a qualified accountant with strong technical accounting skills, experience in charity finance, and a proven track record of effective financial management of a growing organisation. You should be comfortable both managing a small team and working hands-on when needed, building collaborative relationships across the organisation. You will need to be a multitasker with the ability to work at pace, and be willing to develop the finance function and best practices to enable the organisation to grow further.

Key Responsibilities

Financial Accounting and Reporting

• Oversee the maintenance of accurate financial records and bookkeeping in accordance with charity accounting standards (SORP)

• Prepare monthly management accounts including variance reporting and rolling forecasts

• Prepare annual statutory accounts and manage the annual independent audit process in its entirety

• Manage restricted and unrestricted funds in accordance with funder requirements

• Provide accurate and timely financial reporting to the Board of Trustees, Executive Director, and funding partners

Financial Operations

• Oversee day-to-day finance operations including payment processing, staff expenses, and cost allocation (including staff costs)

• Oversee monthly payroll using QuickBooks (led by Finance Assistant)

• Manage treasury functions including bank and cash management

• Oversee procurement of key assets such as IT equipment

• Cashflow management

Grant and Budget Management

• Support budget development for funding bids and proposals

• Monitor spend against grants and projects, working towards full cost recovery

• Prepare financial reports for donors and funding partners

• Lead annual budget-setting and forecasting processes in collaboration with the Board and Executive Director

Financial Systems and Controls

• Develop and maintain robust financial systems, processes, and controls

• Continuously improve finance processes and identify efficiencies

• Advise on financial governance and best practice

• Manage financial risks and opportunities (e.g., insurance, foreign exchange)

Team Management and Stakeholder Relations

• Line manage the Finance Assistant and oversee external bookkeeper consultant

• Build collaborative relationships across the organisation

• Manage relationships with key external stakeholders including banks, international transfer services, and audit partners

• Work closely with the Board's Financial Development Committee and BASIC's Treasurer

Please note: This list is not exhaustive. Other tasks may be required as they arise.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria:

• Qualified accountant (ACCA, CIMA, ACA or equivalent) or part-qualified with significant relevant experience
• Proven experience in a mid-level to senior finance role, with responsibility for financial accounting and reporting
• Experience managing restricted and unrestricted funds
• Experience preparing statutory accounts and managing audit processes
• Experience in a growing organisation, implementing and improving financial systems and controls
• Strong technical accounting skills and understanding of financial controls
• Excellent numeracy and attention to detail
• Proficiency with accounting software (experience with QuickBooks highly desirable)
• Strong Excel/spreadsheet skills
• Excellent communication skills, able to explain financial information to non-finance colleagues
• Highly organised with ability to manage multiple priorities and work to deadlines
• Proactive and solutions-oriented, with ability to work both independently and collaboratively
• Comfortable working hands-on when needed while also providing strategic oversight
• Ability to work at pace in a fast-growing organisation
• Commitment to BASIC's mission and values

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience in charity finance and understanding of charity accounting standards (SORP)
• Experience line managing finance staff
• Experience in an international organisation or with international funding
• Understanding of charity governance and regulatory requirements

Family Support Worker - Essex Care Team

£24,000 pa + Company Car and benefits (including 25 days annual leave, reward scheme and pension)

Essex and surrounding areas, including Romford, Ilford, Harlow, Loughton, Chelmsford

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity is going through an exciting time where we are growing, with the aim of reaching more families in need.

About the role:

This Best Companies Top 100 mid-sized organisation and Top 20 Charity is looking to appoint a Family Support Worker on a full time basis (35 hours per week), to deliver a high-quality family support service as part of our Essex Care Team.

Reporting to the Family Support Manager of the Essex Care Team and working in partnership with health, education and social care professionals, you will take responsibility for providing needs-led emotional, social and practical support to families where a child/young person has a life threatening or terminal illness.

Having worked in a stressful and emotional environment you have a genuine interest in building supportive relationships and helping people; and having provided bereavement support to families, you understand processes of grief, loss and change - and how best to help others deal with its impact.

Location:

This role covers Essex and surrounding areas, including Romford, Ilford, Harlow, Loughton & Chelmsford.

What we’re looking for:

· An experienced child health, education or social care professional - applications will be particularly welcome from those who have worked in a community environment and those with a recognised qualification in education, health or social care

· A warm, inclusive approach to achieving goals quickly and correctly

· Practiced in child protection, information sharing and the rules around data protection - you lead by example, drawing on your own professional experience and working within established guidelines

· Practical and people-oriented - you will thrive working at a fast pace whilst maintaining accuracy and be a confident user of IT (including MSOffice)

· A persuasive and open communicator - you will work collaboratively with your team and volunteers to ensure delivery of a high-quality service and support fundraising colleagues by writing case studies and family updates

· A practical knowledge of diversity issues affecting children, young people and their families – aware that being responsive to others needs and concerns, is essential.

What we offer:

· We have a range of fantastic benefits that we offer our employees, including:

· Flexible working hours to balance home and working life

· Employee Assistance Programme with access to remote GP, counselling, physiotherapy, resources to support your mental health and financial wellbeing, as well as a 24/7 helpline via Help@Hand

· Company car for front line care posts

· 25 days of annual leave plus public holidays – rising to 26 days after 1 year, 27 days after 5 years and 30 days after 11 years, with an additional 5 years to use in your 10th or 20th year of service (pro rata for part time)

· Time off in Lieu

· Access to the Blue Light Card Scheme, and other rewards and discounts

· Bike to work, season ticket loan and payroll giving schemes

· A recommend a friend recruitment bonus scheme

· Family friendly policies, focused on employee wellbeing, and an active cross-organisational wellbeing group running a number of initiatives throughout the year

· Pension scheme where we contribute 5% of your salary and you contribute at least 3%

· The option to buy/sell annual leave, as well as additional leave for your birthday, wedding/civil ceremony and an extra half day off for Christmas shopping

Robust training and development programmes to support your learning and growth

If you’d like to find out more about these benefits and working with us, please visit our website.

As part of our learning and development Anne Harris Skills Development Programme, we aim to provide a high level of training and development opportunities for all staff, so you are able to perform to the best of your ability, achieve individual and team objectives aligned to Rainbow Trusts strategic plan, supporting staff to be their best and feel a valued member of a high performing organisation.

Our Family Support Teams are given the opportunity to complete a number of diverse training courses in their first 12 months, including but not limited to: Mental Health First Aid, Makaton, counselling skills, introduction to play.

The programme aims to provide a building block for you to individually tailor your own learning and development needs.

About us:

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity enables families who have a child with a life-threatening or terminal illness to make the most of time together, providing expert, practical and emotional support, where they need it for as long as it is needed. For families living with childhood illness, time is everything. Right now, there are too many families coping alone with no support, no time to think, no time to make memories and no time for each other. We believe that no family should go through this alone, so we are here to change that.

How to apply:

Please visit our website via the link and apply online.

Interview Date to be confirmed

Please disclose on your application form if you have used AI for any part of your job application.

Interviews will take place at our Essex Care Team office with the dates to be confirmed. We will only contact those applicants who have been successful. If you require any adjustments during the interview process, please let us know.

There will be a requirement for flexible working and a full current driver’s licence to accommodate team and family need. An enhanced DBS disclosure will be required for this post.

Rainbow Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all employees to share this commitment.

Rainbow Trust is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from all backgrounds. We are a Best Companies One-Star rated organisation.

This is an opportunity to lead a varied and meaningful engagement and volunteering portfolio within a small, supportive charity. You’ll support and develop volunteers, build relationships with community partners, and coordinate public engagement activities to ensure that people’s voices shape local health and care services. If you’re looking for a role where your work has real purpose, where you can grow your skills and where new ideas are genuinely welcomed, we’d love to hear from you.

The Organisation

This is a well-established national charity with an income in excess of £100 million, playing a vital role in supporting people affected by a major health condition. The organisation is values-driven, impact-focused, and undergoing continuous improvement in its financial operations. The Finance & Assurance directorate is a trusted partner across the charity, enabling better decision-making through high-quality financial insight and compliance.

The Job

As Financial Accountant, you'll lead a small team and report to the Head of Financial Accounting. You'll be responsible for producing accurate financial statements, managing audit deliverables, ensuring compliance with charity and company law, and driving improvements in financial processes and reporting. This is a hands-on technical role with leadership responsibilities, requiring collaboration across finance, systems, and planning teams to deliver a seamless finance function.

Key responsibilities include:
- Preparing statutory accounts and technical accounting adjustments
- Leading year-end processes and audit engagement
- Ensuring compliance with VAT, Corporation Tax, and Gift Aid
- Driving system and process improvements
- Supporting and developing Associate Accountants

The Person

You'll be a qualified accountant with strong technical expertise in SORP/FRS102 and experience in a large, complex organisation. You'll bring a track record of producing high-quality financial reports, managing audits, and improving performance through data and collaboration. Open to candidates coming straight from practice, especially those who have previously laised with charities.

We're looking for someone who:
- Communicates confidently with senior stakeholders
- Builds high-performing, accountable teams
- Is resilient, adaptable, and committed to continuous improvement
- Works collaboratively across departments and disciplines
- Champions inclusion and values-driven leadership

What's in it for You?

- A meaningful role in a purpose-led organisation making a real difference

- Remote working with occasional office attendance
- Competitive salary in the region of £50,000-£58,000
- 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, rising with service
- Up to 8% employer pension contribution
- Life assurance and income protection
- Employee assistance programme and wellbeing support
- Season ticket loan and cycle-to-work scheme
- Opportunities for professional development and career progression
- A collaborative, high-support environment focused on learning and impact

What to Do Now

If you're a technically strong accountant who thrives in a collaborative, mission-driven environment, I'd love to hear from you. Apply now or get in touch for a confidential conversation.

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East London Students' Union is a progressive charity that supports around 25,000 students that study at the University of East London. We are based in one of the most diverse boroughs in Europe and our membership proudly reflects the communities where we are based.

Our purpose is to support and empower our students by representing their views and providing a range of supportive services, events and activities to make university life the amazing experience it should be. Our Docklands offices, meeting rooms and reception area were fully refurbished last year. In Stratford, we opened our new sitting-around areas, reception, performance rooms and meetings room. Last January, we opened our first café, Nook, on our Docklands campus. In September, we opened a second café, Idle, in Stratford.

We're now working to build a students' union that champions their aspirations and can deliver what's needed to make a difference. We're excited about this and have invested in several new posts to give us the expertise needed. We're in the last year of our strategic plan and will be starting work on our next phase later this year.

If you are excited by the opportunity to help us do things differently, empower others and build a students' union that can better support our students, then we could have a role for you. If you can operate in environments where change is continual, challenges multi-faceted and where solutions require innovative thinking, you'll thrive here. You'll also need to be self-driven, able to operate with autonomy and be able to balance competing priorities.

As an advice caseworker, you’ll provide impartial advice to students on academic matters, and represent and support students in meetings and panels in more complex cases. You’ll use your experience to help us do more preventive work to help our students to take action on their own behalf. You’ll have excellent attention-to-detail and maintain accurate and comprehensive casework notes. (We have two vacancies.)

Diversity is one of the defining features of life at UEL, with over 180 nationalities represented in our student body. We are based in Newham, where more than 74% of residents are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. As we grow our staff team, we are passionate about making our teams representative of the students we support and the communities we operate in. We therefore especially welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates and other candidates typically underrepresented in leadership.

Platform Engineer

Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | Salary: £68,671 + benefits

Do your best work, for the right reasons.

Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We’re a national not-for-profit working in partnership with teachers to create the highest-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups.

Our culture has been independently recognised through:

• Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling)

• Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact

• Investors in People Gold - through external accreditation and colleague feedback

�� About the Role

In this role, you will be working with engineering, product and research colleagues to build confidence using observability principles that aids our understanding of our users and help us continually improve our products. We work together in product squads alongside designers, researchers and education experts, regularly releasing new features and improvements to give teachers and their pupils quick and easy access to the highest quality learning resources.

As a young organisation we have been able to leverage the latest technologies to rapidly build and deliver the game changing products we have. Now that we've proven ourselves and are established, we want to mature our processes to ensure we are getting the best out of the technology and remain able to respond quickly to business needs. We see this role as being a key part of that change.

You will be tasked with raising our monitoring and observability to a high standard across all our key applications while working closely with engineering teams to help them improve the stability of their applications and give engineers more sense of ownership.

You will also drive site reliability engineering principles and be a key driver of automation by working alongside other members of the platform team, helping to improve the overall developer experience.

Candidates must have a good understanding of SRE principles and the value they bring to an organisation. While a good grounding in development practices, security fundamentals and infrastructure operation are key, specific technical skills are less important than a passion for automation, an ability to understand complex systems and a keenness to learn.

Responsibilities

• Lead the continuous improvement of the observability, performance, and reliability of our web applications (Next.js, JavaScript, Typescript, Node), Serverless Functions (Google Cloud Functions, Cloudflare). Deployed on PaaS Infrastructure (Vercel, Cloudflare).

• Promote and nurture a culture of quality across the product and engineering department, enabling teams in using SLO/SLAs to ensure they maintain a high quality of service delivery.

• Take ownership of our observability, monitoring, logging and reporting solutions to ensure they are easy to use and provide development teams with the information they need to understand service quality, resolve problems quickly, and get meaningful insights into application behaviour.

• Identify and implement ways in which automation can be used to speed up development, secure systems or improve the quality of the services we provide.

• As a member of the Oak Team, you will contribute to the wider success and culture of the organisation and support and role model our five values: create the right environment, be a great colleague, own your role but work for the team, make things happen, and keep getting better.

• Work in cross-functional and product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation, as required. Oak has a strong focus on collaboration and mentoring.

• Deputise for other members of the Platform team and take on other general responsibilities as required.

Knowledge, skills, and experience

• The ideal candidate would have strong professional experience leading the continuous improvement of event-driven architectures using Serverless technologies such as Google Cloud Run, AWS Lambda or Azure Serverless.

• Considerable experience in designing and implementing monitoring, observability and reporting solutions for complex cloud infrastructures within a major cloud provider (GCP, AWS, Azure). In production we’re using Datadog as our main monitoring platform.

• Confident in understanding and maintaining web application code and able to design and build small apps, preferably using JavaScript/TypeScript.

• Experience working with Cloud computing platforms and a familiarity with Infrastructure as Code tools. We’ve chosen Terraform as our Infrastructure as Code tool.

• Comfortable promoting and leading a spirit of collaboration with a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders.

  The successful candidate will have a desire to contribute in all areas to ensure Oak is successful. You will be comfortable working at pace, with a range of digital systems (including proprietary ones as required) and you will continuously look at ways that the team can keep getting better. You will be excellent at working as part of a remote team, building relationships and managing your time effectively.

�� Our Benefits

• 25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)

• Additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year

• 11% employer pension contribution (with no minimum employee contribution)

• A 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off

• Fully remote working — we’ll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred

• Twice-yearly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun

• A culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust

  The successful candidate will have a desire to contribute in all areas to ensure Oak is successful. You will be comfortable working at pace, with a range of digital systems (including proprietary ones as required) and you will continuously look at ways that the team can keep getting better. You will be excellent at working as part of a remote team, building relationships and managing your time effectively.

�� Inclusion and Belonging

We believe diverse teams build better products. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those who are underrepresented in the tech and education sectors.

We use the Applied recruitment platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process. 

�� Key Info

• Location: Remote, but you must be based in the UK with the legal right to work here

• Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time

• Closing date: We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in and may close the role early

If this sounds like the kind of role and team where you could do your life’s best work, we’d love to hear from you.

Next steps

You’ll answer some questions related to your day-to-day job. Your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised, and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers (real humans).

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next stage, which will consist of a short chat with one of our Engineering Managers.

We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process, we'll share how well you performed.

We aim to begin interviews in January 2026.

We are receiving excellent responses to our job advertisements. This may lead us to close the role early, so if you are considering applying, please submit your application promptly to avoid missing out.

We are an equal opportunities employer.

We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.