Service design lead jobs in Limavady, causeway coast and glens

For over 60 years the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has been building a better childhood for all.

Research and Development Officer
Contract: Permanent
Work Pattern: Part Time, 28 hours per week (0.8 FTE)
Salary: £34,408 per annum, FTE (£27,526 per annum for 28 hours per week), with annual salary increments for the first three years
Location: Homebased – however NCB and RiP has offices in Sheffield, Newton Abbot, London and Belfast that staff can work from should they choose.

The Vacancy

We are looking for a talented Research and Development Officer to join our children and families team at Research in Practice. In this role you will develop and deliver accessible content and learning activities that promote evidence-informed practice and policy across child and family social care, youth and family justice as part of our annual delivery programme for our partners. You will also be involved in the delivery of commissioned project work.

The successful candidate will have experience designing and delivering resources, workshops, webinars, and events for a range of audiences, including senior leaders.

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone with strong written and editorial skills, excellent facilitation skills and who is confident distilling complex information into accessible learning materials. While the position requires engagement with and understanding of research, it is not a primary research role.

Key responsibilities are:

• Producing evidence-informed practice and policy resources in a range of formats (e.g. publications, videos, podcasts, animations). This includes evidence scoping, content development, commissioning, project management, editing, writing and quality assuring resources from inception to publication.
• Leading the development and delivery of concise, accessible content and learning activities to enable the development of evidence-informed practice and policy in the sector.
• Developing and facilitating learning sessions and events with a range of participants, including senior leaders across the sector.
• Working on a range of commissioned project work, from development/design through to analysis; presenting findings on completion and representing Research in Practice in project teams with academic and practice partners.
• Building strong relationships with sector experts and effectively managing relationships with authors, facilitators, people with lived experience and those working in research, policy and practice.

Research in Practice

Research in Practice is part of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) family. For over 60 years, the NCB has been building a better childhood for all.

Research in Practice works with organisations across the adults and children’s social care, health and criminal justice sectors, supporting them to develop an evidence-informed approach to their work. Our focus is on using evidence from research, practice and lived experience, to provide resources that improve policy and services, in order to achieve positive outcomes for people of all ages.

About NCB

For more than 60 years, the National Children’s Bureau has championed the rights and amplified the voice of children and young people in the UK. We interrogate policy and uncover evidence, blending in lived and learnt experience to shape future legislation and develop more effective ways of supporting children and families.

Bringing people and organisations together is fundamental to how we improve the systems that babies, children, young people and their families rely on to thrive. We push boundaries, even looking beyond childhood itself to consider transitions into adulthood and the impact of childhood issues on an entire lifespan. We are united for better childhoods and brighter futures.

The Benefits

• 30 Days Annual Leave
• Generous Pension Scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Flexible Working
• Winter Holiday Closure & Break
• Employee Assistance Programme

Closing date: 8am, Wednesday 8th July 2026
Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage interested candidates to submit their applications as soon as possible.

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

We are actively seeking to broaden the diversity of our staff group and warmly welcome applications from candidates underrepresented in the charity sector, including those from Black and Global Majority communities, disabled people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with lived experience of the issues NCB works on.

No agencies please.

We are looking for a Weekenders Journey Guide to support prospective Weekend Foster Carers from their first conversations with Now Foster through to the next stages of the recruitment and assessment journey.

This is a highly relational, candidate-facing role. You will be one of the main people helping applicants understand what Weekenders is, explore whether it is right for them, stay motivated through the process, and feel supported to take the next step.

Introductory conversations (our ‘intro chats’) will be a core part of the role. You will speak with people who are curious about fostering, but who may also feel unsure, nervous or are still working out whether they can foster. Your role will be to bring warmth, clarity and momentum: helping people feel welcomed, informed and confident, while also making sure the right people progress at the right pace.

You will use Now Foster’s digital platform (a bespoke CRM system) to manage the candidate journey, track progress, record key information and help the team understand where applicants are getting stuck or moving forward. You will play an important role in making sure we are attracting the right leads, supporting them well, and learning how to improve the journey as we grow.

This role would particularly suit someone with experience of fostering or working in fostering. It could also suit someone from a related background who is deeply motivated by innovation in this area and excited by what fostering could look like if it were designed around children, carers and relationships.

You do not need to be a qualified social worker, but you do need to be emotionally mature, reflective, organised and comfortable working closely with a social work-led team. You will need to understand safeguarding, and be confident holding thoughtful conversations with prospective carers.

What You’ll Be Doing

Supporting candidates through the journey

• Acting as a consistent, warm and encouraging point of contact for prospective Weekend Foster Carers.

• Carrying out intro chats with people who have expressed interest in the Weekenders programme.

• Helping candidates understand the Weekenders programme, what the role involves, and what the journey looks like.

• Supporting candidates to reflect on whether Weekenders is right for them.

• Keeping candidates engaged, informed and motivated as they move through the process.

• Helping people overcome practical barriers where appropriate, while being honest and clear about expectations.

• Making sure candidate communication feels relational, timely and values-led.

Helping the right people progress

• Helping identify candidates who are ready to move forward, as well as those who may need more time, more information or a different route.

• Support candidates to progress, pause or close, as advised by our fostering service colleagues.

• Using strengths-based and motivational approaches to help candidates reflect on their motivations, support networks and capacity.

• Working closely with social work colleagues to escalate questions, concerns or safeguarding issues appropriately.

• Supporting candidates to prepare for training, home visits and assessment stages.

• Helping ensure the process is clear, efficient and supportive.

Supporting groups, events and community activity

• Supporting information events, training sessions and candidate-facing events.

• Co-delivering sessions with social workers and other colleagues.

• Helping create a welcoming community for people exploring Weekenders.

• Supporting socials and community-building activity for applicants and approved Weekend Foster Carers.

• Helping candidates connect with the mission and feel part of something meaningful.

Administration, data and follow-up

• Keeping candidate records, notes and next steps up to date on Now Foster’s digital platform.

• Using Google Workspace, Trello and other tools to access key documents and manage your workload. 

• Making sure no candidate falls through the cracks.

• Supporting data capture so the team can understand what is working and where candidates are getting stuck.

• Helping improve templates, messages, prompts and workflows for the candidate journey.

• Supporting home visit admin and logistics where needed.

Contributing to innovation and learning

• Gathering feedback from candidates to help improve the journey and bringing this insight from candidate conversations into team discussions.

• Helping the team understand what motivates people to become Weekend Foster Carers, what worries them, and what helps them move forward.

• Supporting testing and iteration of new candidate journey approaches.

• Helping us build a process that is warm, efficient, inclusive and effective.

• Contributing to a new model of fostering that is relational, ambitious and designed around children and young people.

You’ll Thrive in This Role If You Are

• Warm and relational – able to build trust quickly and make people feel welcome.

• Emotionally mature – able to have thoughtful conversations about motivation, care, family life and uncertainty.

• A strong communicator – clear, encouraging and confident across phone, video calls, emails and written updates.

• Motivational and strengths-based – skilled at helping people see their potential while also being honest about what fostering involves.

• Organised and proactive – able to manage a busy candidate journey, track next steps and keep people moving.

• Tech-savvy – comfortable using digital platforms, Google Workspace and Trello.

• Confident in your judgement – able to decide when someone should progress, pause or close, while knowing when to seek advice.

• Safeguarding-aware – able to recognise when something needs to be escalated and comfortable working within clear safeguarding processes.

• Reflective and curious – interested in learning what works and improving the candidate journey over time.

• Comfortable with ambiguity – happy working in a small, growing charity where things are evolving.

• Committed to better outcomes for children and young people – motivated by Now Foster’s mission and the potential of Weekenders.

Experience We’re Looking For

Fostering experience would be highly beneficial. For example, this could include experience as a foster carer, working in fostering, supporting foster carers, working with fostering services, or working in a closely related part of children’s social care.

We are also interested in people with experience in:

• Volunteer management

• Children’s social care or youth work

• Community work

• Social prescribing

• Mentoring or coaching

• Recruitment, onboarding or candidate support

• Relationship-based support roles

Most importantly, we are looking for someone who understands the importance of relationships, can guide people through a meaningful decision-making process, and is excited by the possibility of building a different kind of fostering journey.

Bonus Points For

• Lived experience of the care system or fostering.

• Experience working directly with prospective or approved foster carers.

• Experience using motivational interviewing, coaching or strengths-based approaches.

• Experience supporting people through an application, recruitment, assessment or onboarding journey.

• Experience delivering or supporting information sessions, preparation groups, training or community events.

• Experience working remotely or in a flexible, fast-moving team.

An interest in innovation, service design or changing how fostering works.
 

About Us

Now Foster is a team of innovative social workers, designers, and entrepreneurs on a mission to change fostering in the UK.

We bring together social work, service design, public sector transformation and lived experience to create better outcomes for children and young people. Our overarching vision is to transform the fostering system by bringing many more wonderful people into it as foster carers, so that children and young people have the relationships, stability and support they need to thrive.

You will be joining a small, ambitious and passionate team, alongside our trustees, freelancers and advisors, all of whom play an active part in shaping our work. We partner with local authorities and not-for-profits who share our values and are ready to embrace change. As a registered charity, everything we do is driven by purpose, not profit.

About Weekenders

Weekenders is Now Foster’s flagship programme. It pairs children and young people in foster care with inspiring adults who can offer guidance, stability and encouragement on a regular basis. It is about showing up, making a difference, and being that person a young person can count on.

The programme is growing quickly. We are scaling Weekenders across London and beyond, testing new ways to support applicants, local authorities and independent social workers, and building the operational foundations needed for long-term growth.

A core part of this growth is making sure that people who are interested in becoming Weekend Foster Carers receive the right balance of warmth, encouragement, information and challenge as they move through the journey. That is where the Journey Guide comes in.

Working Pattern and Location

This role is offered at 4 to 5 days per week, with a salary of £34,000 pro rata.

The role can be based anywhere in England, with occasional travel to our Weekender delivery areas. Our Weekenders team is currently based across London and Manchester, and our wider organisational team is based in Oxford. Most work will be home-based, but there will be some in-person meetings, events, training sessions or bi-monthly co-working days.

The role will involve some work outside standard office hours. This is likely to include:

• Around one weekend day per month, which you would take back as time off during the previous or following week.

• Some evening work, for example around one information event per month.

• Some evening intro chats with prospective foster carers, where this helps people engage with the process.

We work flexibly and will support the successful candidate to manage their time in a sustainable way.

Safeguarding

Now Foster is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.

This role will involve contact with prospective carers, rather than direct work with children and young people. However, you will need to understand safeguarding, work within Now Foster’s safeguarding processes, and escalate any concerns appropriately.

This role will require an enhanced DBS check.

What’s In It For You

Joining Now Foster means being part of something different. We are small, ambitious and innovative, and you will play a key role in helping Weekenders grow.

You will be close to the people exploring whether they could become Weekend Foster Carers, and your work will directly shape whether they feel supported, confident and ready to take the next step.

You will join a supportive, collaborative and values-led team. We work hard, care deeply about what we do, and are building something bold and lasting: a new way of fostering that blends social work, design, technology and relational practice.

We will provide the tools and technology you need, cover agreed travel and expenses, and support you to work flexibly within the rhythm of the programme.

How to Apply

Please send us your CV and a short cover letter explaining:

1. Why you are interested in Now Foster and the Weekenders programme.

2. The experience you would bring in supporting, guiding or motivating people.

3. Any experience you have of fostering, working in fostering, children’s social care, community work, volunteer management or similar.

4. What excites you about innovation in fostering and what fostering could look like.

5. Your availability, including whether you are looking for 4 or 5 days per week and when you could start.

You must have the right to work in the UK.

We recognise that some candidates may use generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to support the preparation of their application. While this is acceptable, applications must remain an authentic reflection of your own experiences and motivations. We ask candidates to let us know if and how they used AI as part of the recruitment process.

Our Commitment to Equality

Now Foster is committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and actively encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, identities and experiences.

Recruitment and selection decisions are made on the basis of fair, objective and transparent criteria. We will also make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process to ensure accessibility for all candidates.

Please Note: We are hoping to appoint as soon as possible and will close recruitment once we find the right person so candidates are advised to submit an application as soon as they are able.

Location: Remote working in Wales

Salary: £29,580 per annum rising to £32,016 after 1 year of service

Responsible to: Head of Work Experience Projects and North 

Contract type: Full Time (37 hours per week), Fixed-term contract for 3 years in line with the funding from Creative Careers projects

Closing date: 29th June 2026, Midnight

Interviews: We will be interviewing on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as possible

Who we are

Futures For All is the largest social mobility charity in the UK. We help to level the playing field between state and independent schools by giving all young people access to the same prestigious networks available to the top fee-paying schools.

We believe that by inspiring young people to explore their ambitions through our speaker programme, facilitating access to multi-day experiences of the world of work, and supporting young people to successfully seize opportunities available to them, then we can make a profound difference to the lives of young people, their future happiness and prosperity.

By 2028, our ambition is that every young person in the UK has access to high quality work experience. Yet today, less than half of young people leave secondary school having had any work experience whatsoever. 

Role Summary

The purpose of this role is to support and ensure end-to-end delivery across Wales within the Programme and Delivery team. The current focus is within our Creative Careers offer, however, this could evolve in terms of scope to include other flagship programmes in the future. This role will be crucial for liaising with Welsh schools, creative employers, speakers and the wider charity to coordinate and ensure best practices in programmatic delivery,  ensuring alignment with programme wide expectations and KPIs. Essentially, this role is the glue between Futures For All, stakeholder outreach and schools’ partners within Wales. The role will be crucial in coordinating and ensuring successful delivery of different programmatic interventions including, but not limited to, school talks, workshops and work experience for young people in Wales. efforts across that nation to successfully provide end-to-end deliver for Wales’s Creative Talks, Workshops and work experiences and achieve the aims.This includes working with the Futures For All programme teams (Work Experience and Speakers for Schools Teams), and our internal Evaluation and Education teams. 

Key Duties / Responsibilities

Strategic purpose

• Responsible for the end-to-end delivery of Talks and Work Experience opportunities from initial scoping with schools to securing commitments from speakers and employers, monitoring young person applications, programme design and implementation, and stakeholder follow up.  
• Nurturing relationships with key delivery partners to ensure employers or school introduced to the programme are seamlessly onboarded. 
• Working with partners in securing commitments from speakers and employers to deliver talks, workshops and multi-day work experience opportunities.  

• Account management and stewarding for speakers and employers throughout their journey.  

• Preparing employers and speakers to use all speaker and work experience guidance in the coordination and delivery of their placements, including but not limited to Portal and Google Classroom.  

• Working closely with Delivery Partners to ensure seamless delivery of opportunities.  

• Leading on all speaker and employer engagement and meetings with your dedicated contacts/accounts.  

• Work with evaluation team on developing and disseminating impact reports within your specific nation.

• Working closely with Education team to ensure school engagement is in line with charity’s mission

• Delivering training sessions to schools and colleges on our programmes and building on engagement in Wales.

• Building partnerships as determined by needs of the DCMS contract and education partners.

• Developing long-standing relationships with school and college contacts to enable engagement in and implementation of our product offer.  

Delivery:

• Providing best practice guidance and advice on programme set up and content.  

• Responsible for delivery and completion of own work experience placements and the operational and administrative activity required.  

• Taking ownership of own capacity management using capacity management frameworks to help inform future workload planning.  

• Adherence to data compliance, standards, guidelines and best practices to ensure our data integrity and consistency.  

• Retain our registered schools and colleges in our network and increase engagement levels in all programmes.  

• Ensuring all data relating to KPIs is accurate, recorded and presented in reports when required.  

• Represent and work to our values as, fostering a culture of positivity, support, respect, and inclusivity, while taking personal responsibility for their attitude, performance, and development.  

•  Ensure safeguarding best practice is enshrined in all organisational activity.  

Skills / Experience / Knowledge:

Essential:

• Programme Coordination experience, with complex stakeholder management
• Experience and knowledge of the education and careers landscape in Wales. 
• Proficient in process improvement and reporting
• Proficient use of CRM and Microsoft Office to track relationships and ensure proper data management 
• Clear and concise communicator, capable of producing written reports to a professional quality 
• Excellent people relations and communication skills to liaise effectively with all project stakeholders 
• Demonstrable time management skills and proven ability to work to key deadlines 
• Relevant project coordination related experience 
• Experience in analysing data and producing reports and recommendations 

Desirable:

• Hands on approach to all tasks with a spirit of getting stuck in and supporting others 
• Knowledge and/or experience of working with National Quality Assurance Frameworks 
• Project Management Qualification or equivalent experience 
• Experience in supporting young people via charity programmes 
• Previous experiences designing packages/maintaining relationships with educational establishments as an external partner 
• Experience of working with or within the creative sectors 

Diversity at our core

Futures For All is committed to an inclusive and accessible recruitment process and encouraging equality and diversity among our workforces. We acknowledge that some candidates may require additional support to overcome barriers experienced during the application process. 

The Application Process:

Please apply as soon as possible by clicking the 'apply for this job' button in the top right-hand corner of the job advert. Once clicked, you will be asked to complete your application by submitting your CV and a cover letter. The cover letter is an opportunity for you to share the skills and knowledge you have to be successful in this role. Appointees are subject to a DBS check. You must have the right to work in the UK to apply. Please only apply if you meet the required experience for the job role and are based in Wales.

The deadline to submit your application is 29th June 2026, Midnight. Please note that we reserve the right to close this advertisement early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications

We will be interviewing on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as possible.

Futures For All is committed to safeguarding the young people we work with and expects all staff members to share this commitment. Appointees are subject to a DBS check. Having a criminal record will not automatically exclude applicants. You are also required to have the Right to Work in the UK for this role.

Benefits offered at Futures For All

• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Morning of your birthday off 
• £500 a year professional development fund 
• Option to purchase additional annual leave yearly
• 'Winter shutdown' gifted so no need to use annual leave between Christmas and new years eve. 
• Early bank holiday finish - we finish at 3:30pm on a Friday before all bank holidays
• 22.2 hours of volunteering days to use each year
• Home office set up support
• Enhanced sick pay 
• Enhanced family friendly leave 
• Employee Assistance Programme 

Futures For All Values

PASSION: We are committed to levelling the playing field for young people across the UK, creating social mobility and tackling disadvantages.

AGILITY: We challenge our ideas of what is possible in order to better meet the needs of those we support. We are human, make mistakes, learn, evolve and adapt.

INTEGRITY: We act with empathy and bring our authentic selves to work every day. We value and respect the talent, time and intentions of those we work with.

COLLABORATION: We are one team with one mission and only by working together can we deliver better outcomes for young people. We support each other unconditionally and feel motivation in shared success as well as individual progress.

DIVERSITY:  We know it takes people with different ideas, strengths, identities, interests, and cultural backgrounds to make our organisation succeed. We encourage constructive debate and critical friendship.

Contract: 1-Year Fixed Term contract
Hours: Full-time (40hrs/weekly)
Reporting to: Academy Director
Location: Remote 
Salary: £50,000 p/a + 3% pension contribution
Start date: September 2026

About us

Parallel is a small charitable initiative with big ambitions. Our mission is to increase the number and diversity of excellent young mathematicians. We are a Good Thinking project (registered Charity Number: 1147404).

Founded in 2023 by Simon Singh MBE and Dr Junaid Mubeen, our online Parallel Academy supports highly capable students to excel in maths, by providing them with structured programmes that develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills beyond the curriculum.  We currently support more than 10,000 students through the Academy, around 1000 of whom receive highly targeted support through weekly, small-group online tutorials.

We are at an exciting phase in our journey, with plans to expand tutoring to 5000 students over the next four years. Our students are motivated and ambitious. Our maths programme takes place outside of school hours, yet students have an average attendance above 95%. All of our work takes place online and is subject to safeguarding and data protection policies that are reviewed periodically to reflect up-to-date best practice.

Parallel has built a reputation for excellence, both in terms of the expectations we set for students, and the quality of service they receive from us. Our work is underpinned by an inclusive ethos; every student who applies for the Academy is guaranteed a place on one of our programmes. 

We work flexibly to both launch new initiatives and adapt our existing offerings. We pride ourselves on a creative approach to programme design and now face a familiar challenge of maintaining our quality and highly personalised approach as we scale up.

The purpose of this role
 

We are seeking an experienced Head of Operations to join and help lead our committed and energetic team. This role is pivotal to achieving Parallel’s growth ambitions while maintaining the quality of service we are renowned for. As a senior leader, you will be a lynch pin of our core team and will make a real difference to the life prospects of thousands of young students. 

On a practical level, you will coordinate and drive our core programmes, with oversight and accountability for their smooth, day-to-day delivery. You will also line-manage two full-time administrators (this may increase as the team expands), overseeing and supporting their work across communications, data and operational delivery.

We have established several processes and tools for delivering our programme effectively and the ideal candidate will have a sharp eye for process improvement and opportunity. You will need to understand and consolidate our current best practices, but also identify ones that need to be adapted or enhanced as we look to scale up. 

This role is offered initially as a fixed-term contract for 12 months, though we have every intention to extend the position longer term should the appointment prove successful. 

A note on working hours
 

This is a fully-remote role. As part of your contracted hours you will be required to regularly do some work during evenings and weekends (approx 5-8 hours a week). You may occasionally need to step in at short notice, outside of standard working hours, to support and resolve urgent operational issues.

There will also be periods when there is a higher workload (e.g., during student admissions cycles), so you may be required to offer some flexibility in working longer  - and then shorter - hours week to week. Time off in-lieu is provided for additional hours worked. 

In general, you will have significant autonomy in how you structure your working week, provided you ensure that our core operational needs are covered within the whole team.

Key responsibilities

Working for Parallel is challenging and rewarding in equal parts. On a typical day you will be fielding queries from parents, managing the logistics of 200+ tutorials a week and ensuring tutors are fully supported. We are a dynamic team that readily adapts to new situations and relishes the challenge of working through problems together. 

As part of your key responsibilities you will:
 

• Oversee the smooth day-to-day running of our Tutorial and Webinar Programmes, ensuring that sessions proceed as planned, and that any issues - from tutor cover needs to student absence requests - are swiftly and effectively addressed.

• Coordinate key aspects of our start and end-of-term administration, including payments, parent and student communications, website setup, spreadsheets and logistics.

• Oversee the admin team’s responsiveness to our high-volume shared inboxes, responding to the most sensitive student and parent queries and acting as a point of escalation where needed.

• Manage a small but growing admin team, providing regular guidance, support, and feedback.

• Play a key role in overseeing our student admissions cycles, from planning to testing, setup, delivery and communication of decisions.

• Make everyday operational decisions independently, exercising good judgement in when to bring issues to senior management.

• Work effectively with data (e.g. student learning data) - as managed through our central directories - and use it to guide decision-making and to support the effective running of our programmes. 

• Review our policies on an ongoing basis, ensuring that we are complying with our safeguarding and data protection obligations at all times and that our policies are built for scale.

• Support with schools outreach initiatives.

• Develop and document key administrative procedures (an ever-evolving ‘Operations Handbook’) to ensure that we have reliability and stability across all programmes.

• Help to shape and build on our ethos of high expectations, which translates into concrete policies regarding attendance, homework, participation and criteria for both admitting and removing students from our Tutorial Programme.

Role requirements
 

While there is no fixed template for working with Parallel, we consider the following requirements essential for this role:

• Proven leadership qualities, with the ability to act independently and decisively when the situation demands it. 

• Experience managing small teams, including multiple direct reports.

• Managed operations at large scale - you have executed product/service delivery to thousands of end users.

• Excellent project management skills, with the ability to delegate tasks and to track processes and outcomes.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to connect effectively with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholders.

• Proficiency in working with digital tools and software such as Google Sheets, Docs, Forms, Zoom and Trello (and able to learn new tools quickly and independently).

• Excellent with spreadsheets and data - you know your vlookups from your pivot tables.

• Nimble problem-solver who can think on your feet and approach complex situations with a flexible mindset.

• A ‘can-do’ attitude and strong team ethic - you are known as a supportive presence for your colleagues who will go above and beyond to make their lives easier.

• Demonstrable ability to work productively in a fully remote setup.

• A strong commitment to safeguarding, and the ability to maintain confidentiality and integrity related to all aspects of information disseminated within the organisation.
   

It is also desirable (though not essential) for you to have relevant experience in an education setting.
 

Please note that this role will be subject to an Enhanced DBS check. 

How to apply
 

If this sounds like you, please submit your CV and cover letter via CharityJob, or get in touch with any questions. 

Interviews will take place online after the closing date. As part of the selection process, shortlisted candidates will be required to complete tasks designed to assess relevant skills.

For over 60 years the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has been building a better childhood for all.

Senior CPD and Learning Officer (Adults)
Contract: Permanent
Work Pattern: Part Time, 28 hours per week (0.8 FTE) (We are open to flexible hours and working patterns, including accommodating part-time and compressed hours where possible).
Salary: £40,855 per annum, FTE (£32,684 per annum for 28 hours per week)
Location: Belfast BT15 + Northern Ireland / Newton Abbot TQ12 + Devon/Sheffield S1 or Remote UK homebased.

The Vacancy

Research in Practice has supported evidence-informed practice in adult social care for 21 years. We now have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Continuing Professional Development and Learning Officer to join our adult’s team.

This senior role is ideal for an experienced facilitator who has substantial experience in adult social care or related sectors. While the position requires engagement with, and understanding of, research it is not a primary research role.

The successful candidate will have experience designing and delivering programmes, whole day workshops, webinars, and other events for a range of audiences, including senior leaders. The role requires a strong understanding of research, policy, ethical and legal frameworks relevant to practice and the ability to translate complex evidence into accessible learning. Strong leadership, communication, and collaboration skills are essential.

We are keen to hear from potential candidates who have detailed expert knowledge of adult social care and related adult services; knowledge of learning theory and its application to the development of learning activities; experience of developing and facilitating all-day workshops and other learning programmes and events with social care professionals; experience of leading quality assurance of learning activities and ensuring the quality of the work of others; a commitment to developing the work of others and sharing learning; a personal commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and anti-discriminatory practice, and in involving people with lived experience in effective, ethical and evidence-based ways; and experience of writing successful bids and tenders.

We are actively seeking to broaden the diversity of our staff group and warmly welcome applications from candidates underrepresented in the charity sector, including those from Black and Global Majority communities, disabled people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with lived experience of the issues NCB works on.

Research in Practice

Research in Practice is part of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) family. For over 60 years, the NCB has been building a better childhood for all.

Research in Practice works with organisations across the adults and children’s social care, health and criminal justice sectors, supporting them to develop an evidence-informed approach to their work. This role is focused on our work with Adults. Our focus is on using evidence from research, practice and lived experience, to provide resources that improve policy and services, in order to achieve positive outcomes for people of all ages.

About NCB

For more than 60 years, the National Children’s Bureau has championed the rights and amplified the voice of children and young people in the UK. We interrogate policy and uncover evidence, blending in lived and learnt experience to shape future legislation and develop more effective ways of supporting children and families.

Bringing people and organisations together is fundamental to how we improve the systems that babies, children, young people and their families rely on to thrive. We push boundaries, even looking beyond childhood itself to consider transitions into adulthood and the impact of childhood issues on an entire lifespan. We are united for better childhoods and brighter futures.

The Benefits

• 30 Days Annual Leave
• Generous Pension Scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Flexible Working
• Winter Holiday Closure & Break
• Employee Assistance Programme

Closing date: 8am, Tuesday 30th June 2026
Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage interested candidates to submit their applications as soon as possible

Interested?

If you would like to apply and find out more about this position, please click the apply button to be directed to our website.

We are actively seeking to broaden the diversity of our staff group and warmly welcome applications from candidates underrepresented in the charity sector, including those from Black and Global Majority communities, disabled people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with lived experience of the issues NCB works on.

No agencies please.

Platform Engineer

Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | Salary: £71,043 + benefits including 4.5-day week and 11% employer pension

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

We've built a lot, fast. Now we want to make it last.

As a young organisation, we've used modern technology to move quickly and get remarkable products into teachers' hands. We've proven what's possible. Now we're maturing, making sure the foundations are as strong as what's built on top of them. We see this role as central to that change.

You'll work with engineering, product, and research colleagues to build confidence in using observability principles that deepen our understanding of how teachers and pupils use our products, and help us keep improving them. We work in product squads alongside designers, researchers, and education experts, regularly releasing new features and improvements so teachers and pupils get quick and easy access to the highest quality learning resources.

Alongside other members of the platform engineering group, you'll enable squads to move more quickly by optimising tooling and implementing automations, including the effective and safe use of AI. You'll drive the creation and adoption of engineering standards across code, deployment, security, observability, and monitoring. And you'll be a key driver of automation, working with the rest of the platform team to improve the overall developer experience.

You'll need a good understanding of platform engineering in a SaaS-heavy environment and the value it brings to an organisation. A solid grounding in development practices, security fundamentals, and infrastructure operation matters. But specific technical skills are less important to us than a passion for automation, an ability to understand complex systems, and a pragmatic engineering approach.

As part of the Oak team, you'll 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.

��What you'll be doing:

• Leading continuous improvement of the observability, performance, and reliability of our web applications (Next.js, JavaScript, TypeScript, Node) and serverless functions (Google Cloud Functions, Cloudflare), deployed on Vercel and Cloudflare

• Helping teams maintain high service quality by promoting a culture of quality across engineering and product, and enabling squads to use SLOs and SLAs effectively

• Contributing to the strategy and evolution of our monitoring, logging, and reporting solutions so developers can resolve problems quickly and get meaningful insights into application behaviour

• Identifying and implementing automations that speed up development, improve security, or raise the quality of what we deliver

• Working in cross-functional, product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation

• Deputising for other members of the platform team and taking on broader responsibilities as needed

�� What we're looking for

You'll have strong professional experience working with event-driven architectures using serverless technologies such as Google Cloud Run, AWS Lambda, or Azure Serverless.

Beyond that, you'll bring:

• Demonstrable experience collaboratively designing and implementing observability, monitoring, and reporting solutions for complex cloud infrastructures in a major cloud provider (GCP, AWS, or Azure), including solutions for squad-specific use cases

• Confidence reading and maintaining web application code, with the ability to design and build small apps, preferably in JavaScript or TypeScript

• Experience with cloud computing platforms and a working familiarity with Infrastructure as Code tools

• A collaborative approach, comfortable promoting and leading collaboration with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and able to frame work in terms of impact.

You'll want to contribute in all areas, not just your own lane. You'll be comfortable working at pace across a range of digital systems, always looking for ways the team can keep getting better. And you'll be excellent at remote working, building relationships and managing your time effectively.

Specific technical skills matter less to us than a sound engineering mindset and the ability to bring others with you.

�� 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

�� 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. 

If you're from an underrepresented group, there's a good chance you're discounting yourself before you've even started. That's more common than you'd think, and it means we may miss out on brilliant people. If you're excited by this role but don't meet every requirement, please apply anyway.

We use the Applied platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process. Answers are anonymised and reviewed by a panel of humans.

�� 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 a few admin questions followed by three questions about your day-to-day work. Answers are anonymised, randomised, and reviewed by a panel, so it's your thinking that gets assessed, not your CV.

If you're shortlisted, we'll invite you to interview. We give everyone feedback at the end of the process.

Interview dates:

Interview 1: Monday 13 and Tuesday 14 July 2026

Final interview: Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 July 2026

If this sounds like somewhere you could do your life's best work, we'd love to hear from you.

We're getting strong responses to our roles and we may close applications early. If you're interested, don't leave it too long.

We are an equal opportunities employer.

We're an equal opportunities employer and committed to making sure everyone is treated fairly, regardless of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race.

About Adolescent Health Study

The Adolescent Health Study (AHS) is an ambitious new UKRI-funded initiative to establish a prospective, longitudinal population study that will generate a globally leading open science data platform and research resource. AHS aims to recruit at least 100,000 young people aged eight to 18 years from across the UK and to follow their mental and physical health and wellbeing over at least 10 years. It plans to collect data through questions and measures; to obtain bio-samples for a wide range of genomic and other high-throughput assays; and to capture linked data relevant to health and wellbeing from participants’ health, education and other administrative records. Recruitment will take place mainly through schools. There will be a strong emphasis on engaging with and involving young people, schools, parents and other relevant stakeholders in the design and delivery of the study, as well as on including young people that represent as wide as possible a range of backgrounds, experiences and characteristics. AHS will focus on enabling a wide range of research, including studies of the critical biological and social developments that occur during the transition from childhood to adulthood and the determinants of both mental and physical health and wellbeing in adolescents and young adults.

Purpose of the post

The HR Officer plays a key role in delivering an effective, professional, and compliant HR service across the organisation. Supporting both operational HR processes and employee experience, the post holder will contribute to attracting, developing, and retaining talent in a collaborative and values-driven research environment.

Main responsibilities

HR Operations & Administration Support

• Lead recruitment campaigns in consultation with hiring managers, including drafting job adverts, short-listing and coordinating interviews.
• Manage employee life cycle process, including background checks, onboarding and offboarding.
• Maintain accurate and confidential employee records in compliance with GDPR and organisational policies.
• Administer HR systems, contracts, and employment documentation.
• Manage relationship with 3rd party suppliers including HR consultancy and DBS check providers.
• Support payroll preparation including monthly absence reporting and ensuring accurate data submission and coordination with Finance/Payroll.
• Support the wider central administrative team as required.

 Employee Relations

• Provide first-line HR advice to managers and staff on policies, procedures, and employment matters.
• Support casework relating to absence, performance, disciplinary, and grievance processes.
• Support managers and the COO with complex people cases, working with the external HR partner as required.
• Promote a positive and inclusive working culture aligned with the organisation’s values.

Learning & Development

• Coordinate training activities and support professional development initiatives for research and support staff.
• Some delivery of internal people-related training
• Assist in identifying skills gaps and contributing to workforce development plans.

Policy & Compliance

• Ensure HR practices comply with employment legislation, charity sector regulations, and best practice.
• Monitor and assist with the development, review, and implementation of HR policies and procedures, including handbook updates.
• Support equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives across the organisation.

HR Projects & Continuous Improvement

• Contribute to HR projects such as staff engagement, wellbeing initiatives, and organisational development.
• Support the implementation of HR systems improvements and process efficiencies.
• Collect and analyse HR data to inform decision-making and reporting.

Knowledge, skills and experience 

Essential

1. Experience in an HR administrative or officer-level role.
2. Sound knowledge of UK employment law and HR best practice.
3. CIPD Level 3 or equivalent.
4. Experience of supporting payroll and finance processes.
5. Proven ability to establish and evolve people processes in a growing organisation.
6. Proficiency in HR systems, such as BreatheHR or equivalent, and Microsoft Office applications.
7. Experience of working in organisations with multiple staffing arrangements i.e. direct employees, secondees, contractors etc.
8. Strong organisational and administrative skills with excellent attention to detail.
9. Ability to handle sensitive information with confidentiality and professionalism.
10. Strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Desirable

1. CIPD Level 5 qualification (or working towards).
2. Experience working in the charity, academic, or research sector.
3. Experience supporting EDI and wellbeing initiatives.
4. Familiarity with public funded and/or project-based staffing environments.
5. Experience supporting or negotiating secondment arrangements, particularly within academic, charity or research environments.

Dimensions

• This is a full-time role, 37.5 hours per week, offered initially as an 18-month fixed-term contract with potential route to permanency.
• Flexible working across several geographical locations in the UK.  Travel may be required to AHS locations and partner organisations.
• AHS is a national organisation, and our activities take place across the UK.

Application Process

All candidates are required to complete the application form which can be found when clicking 'Apply Now' via Charity Job. 

Please refer to the ‘How to Apply’ section of the downloadable application form.

Please note that only applications submitted directly to Gravitate HR will be accepted for this position.

The closing date for applications is 11:00pm on Sunday 5 July 2026.

Interviews are currently expected to take place on Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 August 2026.

Equal Opportunities Policy Statement

 AHS is an equal opportunities employer, and as such aims to treat all employees, consultants and applicants fairly. It is our policy to provide employment equality to all, irrespective of:

• Gender, including gender reassignment
• Marital or civil partnership status
• Having or not having dependants
• Religion or belief
• Race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins)
• Disability
• Sexual orientation
• Age

We are opposed to all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination.  All job applicants and employees who work for us will be treated fairly and will not be unfairly discriminated against on any of the above grounds. Decisions about recruitment and selection, promotion, training or any other benefit will be made objectively and without unlawful discrimination. 

Values

It is an exciting time for the Adolescent Health Study (AHS) as we establish our senior leadership team and begin to plan the pilot studies. As the senior executive team evolves, the AHS values will be grounded in inclusivity, integrity, accountability, and collaboration.