Contract: Permanent, full time
Salary:£30,000 - £35,000 per annum
Accommodation:there is the option to live in or out with this role
Location:West End, Southampton, SO30 2HL
Closing date: Thursday 18 September 2025
Interview dates:
- 1st stage interview – Thursday 25 September 2025
- 2nd stage discovery session – Thursday 2 October 2025
Are you an experienced operational manager, who relishes a challenge, with a passion for pets and people?
We’re recruiting a Centre Manager with strong leadership, organisational and communication skills to lead our Southampton Rehoming Centre in all pets, people, facilities, financial and compliance matters!
This is an exciting time for the Southampton Centre with many changes happening and the chance for a dynamic leader to bring their own experience and help shape the future for the pets and people at the site.
More about the role
Blue Cross Southampton Rehoming Centre has cared for pets and supported the local community since 1988. The site provides care for dogs, cats and kittens, while our dedicated offsite team supports small pets in foster homes and through our home direct scheme.
As Centre Manager, you’ll be responsible for all aspects of the Centre – pets, people, facilities, compliance and finances. Working closely with your Assistant Managers, you’ll inspire and empower your team, embed a culture of continuous improvement and ensure the highest welfare standards.
This role is about leading people and leading change. We have a skilled, passionate team with great ideas – we now need someone who can take those forward, make things happen, and bring colleagues with them on the journey. There’s also real opportunity shape the future of the centre, including rethinking how we use our space for the most effective working environment.
The standard hours for this role are 37.5 hours per week on a locally agreed rota to include weekends and bank holidays. The standard hours are 8:30 – 5 Monday – Friday with flexibility where there is a business need.
Accommodation – this role comes with the option of on-site accommodation by way of a two-bedroom bungalow which includes a study/third bedroom and an extensive private garden!
Want to know more detail? Great! We have attached candidate pack and job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.
About you
You will be an inspirational leader with a proven track record of motivating, developing and supporting people in a fast-paced environment. You’ll bring strong change management skills – able to set direction, take action and empower others to deliver improvements.
Alongside your leadership strengths, you’ll bring sound knowledge of animal welfare and operational excellence from a similar environment. Confident and decisive, you’ll balance the needs of pets, people, and resources to achieve outstanding results.
Resilient, empathetic and emotionally intelligent, you’ll thrive on challenge and approach every situation with a positive, problem-solving mindset.
Knowledge, skills, and experience
- Significant experience of successfully motivating, leading, and developing high performance teams, including setting clearly defined objectives, and managing performance in an animal welfare setting.
- Strong knowledge of animal welfare/care, ensuring operational excellence in a similar animal welfare environment.
- Experience of positively embracing and adapting to change by identifying, leading, and managing change in line with organisational objectives.
- Financially aware and numerate.
- Proven experience of working constructively and collaboratively with colleagues from different teams.
- Interpersonal and consultative skills, including the ability to communicate, present, negotiate, influence, and build credibility with colleagues and external parties.
- Experience of working in a commercial environment where the need to control costs and deliver high levels of service are important.
- The ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross values
- Current full driving licence.
How to apply
Click the apply button below and complete the online application process before the closing date on Thursday 18 September 2025.
The process will include:
- First stage interview and site tour – Thursday 25 September 2025
- Discovery Session – Thursday 2 October 2025. This will include scenario-based exercises and group discussions, giving you the chance to demonstrate your leadership style and approach to change while meeting colleagues at the Centre.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.
Blue Cross benefits
Our people are the most important part of delivering our purpose. If it were not for their amazing efforts and commitment, we would not be able to make the difference that we do today.
In return, Blue Cross wants to ensure we provide you with the best working environment we can. We want you to be happy working for us and will do everything we can to make sure you are.
Our generous benefits package includes:
- Full time equivalent of 38 days holiday rising to 43 with service (including Bank Holidays)
- Programmes for physical and mental wellbeing support
- Free access to GP via MetLife- 24/7 GP services, private prescriptions and more for you and your family
- Free physiotherapy advice and face to face intervention
- Health cash plan
- Unlimited access to an employee assistance programme
- Pension scheme with enhanced employer contribution
- Professional fees paid with Continuing Professional Development and personal development support.
- Life assurance
- 20% discount on Pet Plan pet insurance
- Enhanced family friendly policies
- Recognition scheme
- Annual volunteer days
- Charity worker discounts across a variety of retailers
To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.
Registered Charity 
501 - 1000
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
Closing Date: 18 September 2025
Ref 7066
Save the Children UK is seeking a dynamic and motivated Sales Lead to join our Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA).
In this pivotal role, you will lead the growth of our commercial arm, HLA Enterprise (HLA-E), by expanding income streams, strengthening partnerships, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our innovative learning platforms, including Kaya. This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in advancing locally led humanitarian action, helping us reach more learners worldwide, and ultimately supporting communities to better prepare for and respond to crises.
About Us
Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.
About the Team:
The Humanitarian Leadership Academy's (HLA's) mission is to inspire a movement for locally led humanitarian action. Our purpose is to work with local actors and organisations to provide tailored resilience and crisis response support that addresses their specific needs, focusing on nurturing and empowering local leaders, driving collective action through our networks, thought leadership & research and amplifying local expertise, creating opportunities for change and collaboration.
The HLA provides learning opportunities that help the humanitarian sector become more locally led, reaching over 450,000 learners in 190 countries. Through our commercial arm, HLA Enterprise (HLA-E), we deliver innovative online learning products and consultancy services, centred around Kaya, our global digital platform offering 500+ courses in multiple languages.
About the role
As the HLA Sales Lead, you will lead and manage commercial activity for HLA-Enterprise (HLA-E), driving the growth and diversification of income streams by selling our innovative learning products and services to individuals and organisations in the humanitarian and development sectors.
You will be responsible for acquiring new partners and renewing and expanding existing ones. This involves identifying opportunities, working closely with HLA teams to create awareness of our offer, converting enquiries, upscaling partnerships, and building a strong portfolio of clients for Kaya and other e-learning solutions. You will also play a key role in building partnerships across Save the Children and the wider sector, ensuring the financial sustainability of HLA and supporting its strategic direction.
In this role, you will:
- Deliver on HLA-E sales strategy to diversify and increase HLA-E income streams, ensuring delivery of agreed targets and business growth
- Ability to ensure clear and timely reporting of the sales performance.
- Support the development of a new go-to-market strategy to grow HLA's commercial revenue from products and services, working to set and achieve agreed income targets for 2025-2027.
- Identify and secure new business opportunities in the e-learning market for HLA's solutions, products, and services, ensuring a robust prospect pipeline.
- Responsible for all Kaya & HLA-E sales, account management of clients and pitching for new clients/audiences and on-going client management.
- Enhance the customer journey to improve conversion rates, managing key performance metrics such as income, profitability, and return on investment.
- Build and manage relationships with potential customers and partners by working closely with HLA colleagues across various functions.
- Explore innovative funding mechanisms that provide mutual benefits for the HLA and donors, such as social investment.
- Represent HLA in external forums to promote its mission and seek new opportunities for collaboration.
- Support strong internal communication and contribute to building an inclusive and supportive team culture.
About you
We are looking for someone with the following experience, competencies and skills:
- Strong understanding and proven experience in sales and target setting
- Strong account management and relationship management skills
- Ability to work as part of a high performing team as well as independently
- Strong representational and communication skills
- Understanding of the international humanitarian system and/or the learning sector
- Experience presenting complex information to varied audiences in an engaging way
- Experience of working with legal agreements, contracts, and internal procedures
- Solutions-focused with strong problem-solving skills including tracking against the budget
- Flexibility and adaptability in a fast-paced environment
Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.
Ways of Working:
The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.
Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense.
Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.
Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:
Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.
We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.
