Assistant Manager - Onsite Services

Blue Cross For Pets; Burford; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 30,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and wellbeing package

Pension scheme with enhanced employer

Life assurance

Annual volunteer days

Pet insurance discount

Job summary

Blue Cross in Burford is seeking an Assistant Manager - Onsite Services to lead the Rehoming & Fostering Services team at our Burford centre. You will oversee the refill and adoption stages, ensuring pet welfare and a high standard of client care.

You will work with operational colleagues to maintain a steady pipeline of pets and adopters, provide coaching, and ensure GDPR-compliant administration.

Qualifications

• Experience in a rescue welfare environment.
• Significant experience managing a team.
• Strong client service in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience mentoring and coaching operational teams.
• Excellent verbal and written communication.
• Proven decision-making ability.
• Current full driving licence.
• Understanding of Blue Cross values.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to ensure smooth refill and adoption stages.
• Collaborate with operations to maintain a pipeline of pets and adopters.
• Monitor the client journey and continually improve on-site facilities and services.
• Ensure admissions and adoptions comply with GDPR and internal processes.
• Deliver high-quality rehoming services with strong client care.

Skills

People leadership

Client service

Decision making

Analytical skills

Job description

Assistant Manager - Onsite Services

Application Deadline: 16 November 2026

Department: Rehoming & Fostering Services

Employment Type: Permanent

Location: Burford

Compensation: £26,042 - £30,281 / year

Description

Contract: Permanent, full time 37.5 hours per week

Salary: £26,042 - 30,281 per annum

Location: Burford, OX18 4PF

Closing date: Monday 16th November 2026

Interview date: W/C 23rd November 2026

We’re recruiting an Assistant Manager - Onsite Services to join our Burford rehoming centre, to ensure that the right pet is placed in the right service for both the client and the pet.

More about the role

At Blue Cross we are ambitious, and the work carried out by our Centre's is key in achieving our strategy and ensuring that ultimately, we help more pets.

This is a wonderful opportunity to join Blue Cross to lead a team in ensuring a high level of client care, efficient and connected decisions relating to pet welfare, and the delivery of high-quality rehoming services.

On a day-to-day basis you’ll be leading your team and ensuring the smooth running of the refill and adoption stages of our rehoming services. You’ll work closely with operational colleagues to ensure we have a pipeline of new pets and pool of adopters ready for a pet.

The refill and adoption stages of our rehoming services is critical, so this role will see you working closely with your team and colleagues with a strong focus on finding the right homes for pets as efficiently as possible and refilling to optimise caseloads for our Pet Welfare Assistants. While delivering robust rehoming services are important to us, so is the client experience and it will be up to you to ensure that we monitor and continually look for ways to uphold and improve our client journey.

For many, the Centre will be the ‘public face’ of Blue Cross so you will need to ensure that your team put client service is at the heart of every interaction, this includes making sure public areas and facilities are welcoming and engaging and that administration of the admission and adoption process complies with internal processes and compliance legislation such as GDPR.

This is a full-time role working 37.5 hours per week on a rota which includes weekends and bank holidays.

At Burford rehoming centre, we provide onsite accommodation for pets in our care 24/7. Overnight shifts are usually undertaken by team members who live on site. Occasionally, you will be expected to carry out night checks or stay in on site accommodation overnight when the resident team members are either not working or away for a period of time. These duties are organised on a local rota and shared between all members of the team.

About you

You will be an excellent manager of people, having skills which are finely honed by working in a similar, animal related environment with expert knowledge and application of pet welfare and care.

As an accomplished, positive, and innovative manager, you will know how to inspire, motivate, and drive continuous improvement. You will be able to lead a team of Pet Welfare Assistants, developing and empowering them through effective management and coaching.

With excellent communication skills, you will have the ability to adapt your approach to suit different audiences. As there are always many ‘plates spinning’ you will be naturally calm and organised, and be prepared to make decisions in a high-pressure environment.

You will have strong analytical skills and the ability to rigorously monitor, assess, and evaluate in order to deliver improvements. You will have an appetite to continually improve onsite facilities and services, ensuring your team and others involved are engaged.

You will know what it is like to work in an emotionally charged environment and have excellent ‘bounce back ability’ and resilience. In addition, you will be emotionally intelligent, showing empathy and knowing how to support your team and members of the public.

Knowledge, skills, and experience

• Experience of working in a rescue welfare environment.
• Significant experience of managing a team.
• Significant experience in delivering high level client service in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience of developing, mentoring, and coaching operational teams.
• High standard of verbal and written communication.
• Proven decision-making ability.
• Understanding of and ‘hands on’ experience of pet care.
• Current full driving licence.
• Ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross Values.

It would be great (but not essential) if you also had:

• Client relationship management experience.
• Performance management and improvement experience.
• Change management experience.
• Delivering training and presenting to large groups.
• Experience working with volunteers.
• Qualifications in management, leadership, or coaching
• Understanding of safeguarding issues.

Want to know more detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.

Using AI in your application

We’re happy for you to use AI tools to help you prepare your application, for example to organise your thoughts, improve clarity or check spelling and grammar. However, your application must be an honest reflection of your own skills, experience and achievements, and AI should not be used to write your application for you or create examples that aren’t your own.

Please read our guidance on using AI when applying to Blue Cross before submitting your application.

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
• 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.