Interim Executive Director of Services

Page Executive; England; Hybrid; Confidential; Full time

Job summary

A national charity in the UK is seeking a Director of Services to oversee and enhance client-facing operations. The successful candidate will lead a dedicated team, ensuring service quality and compliance while fostering strategic partnerships. This role demands extensive senior leadership experience, strong capabilities in business performance management, and a commitment to safeguarding best practices. A competitive salary of £90,000 to £95,000 is offered, along with hybrid working arrangements. This is an exceptional opportunity to make a meaningful impact within the charity sector.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Opportunity to work within a respected Charity

Hybrid working

Qualifications

• Demonstrated success in transforming service delivery.
• Experience in managing complex HR matters.
• Comprehensive knowledge of safeguarding legislation.
• Evidence of continuous professional development in relevant areas.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the charity's client-facing services.
• Lead and motivate a team of staff and volunteers.
• Build and maintain strategic partnerships.
• Ensure compliance with safeguarding and diversity policies.

Skills

Senior leadership experience

Understanding of commissioning

Ability to challenge the status quo

Strong grasp of business performance management

Stakeholder engagement skills

Education

Degree-level education or equivalent experience

Job description

• To ensure continuity, quality, and efficiency of client-facing services.
• Manage client-facing services for the Charity.

About Our Client

A UK-wide charity that supports individuals facing severe social exclusion-including homelessness, long-term unemployment, criminal justice involvement, gang exploitation, poverty, addiction, and mental health challenges. The Charity uses lived experience as expertise to foster positive change and sustainable futures.

Job Description

• Overseeing the day-to-day operations of the charity with specific responsibility for ensuring effective and efficient delivery of our client-facing services.
• Ensuring our client-facing services are not just delivering in accordance with compliance and regulations, but that we are constantly seeking to reflect best practice and to be leaders in the work we do.
• Leading, motivating and inspiring a large team of professional staff and volunteers, promoting a positive and inclusive working culture.
• Ensuring the charity is building and maintaining strategic and operational partnerships with stakeholders to ensure we optimise and maximise the impact and reach of our services to clients.
• Setting and driving strategic direction for service development, delivery and expansion, ensuring relevance, accessibility, and alignment with the charity's mission and values.
• Establishing robust oversight of all client-facing services, ensuring performance against contractual obligations, safeguarding standards, and financial sustainability.
• Embedding quality assurance and impact frameworks, including data collection, evaluation, training accreditation, and continuous improvement across all services.
• Leading and supporting a team of Directors, ensuring their objectives reflect strategic priorities and upholding a culture of accountability, safety, and ethical practice.
• Strengthening strategic partnerships and stakeholder relationships, especially those with national reach, to enhance service impact and visibility.
• Championing a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing culture, fostering innovation, transparency, and staff empowerment across the organisation.
• Representing the charity externally, selecting appropriate voices, including staff and service users, to reflect the charity's ethos and amplify its work.
• Ensuring compliance with safeguarding, health and safety, and diversity policies, and leading on complex staffing matters, including investigations and disciplinary processes.
• Ensuring that confidentiality and security of information is maintained in accordance with our Confidentiality, Data Protection, IT and Security policies. Promoting sustainable working practices and reducing the environmental impact of the charity's work.
• Demonstrating an understanding of and commitment to the charity's values and to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• Demonstrates a strong understanding of the charity's approach to employing and developing lived experience, including how it is applied in line with our values.

The Successful Applicant

A successful Director of Services should have:

• Extensive senior leadership experience in managing complex, multi-disciplinary services at a national scale.
• A strong understanding of commissioning and safeguarding.
• Being able to challenge the status Quo.
• The ability to work at pace.
• Demonstrated success in transforming service delivery through the implementation of rigorous safeguarding frameworks, quality assurance systems, and data-driven performance management.
• Track record of leading high-performing teams through periods of change, with a focus on accountability, continuous improvement, and measurable outcomes.
• Experience in stabilising and scaling services funded through diverse models, underpinned by robust business planning and integrated performance oversight.
• Experienced in managing complex HR matters, including investigations, disciplinary processes, and cultural change initiatives.
• Strong grasp of business performance management, including how to build and sustain performance cultures across diverse services, especially where previous oversight has been weak or fragmented.
• Degree-level education in a relevant field or demonstrable equivalent experience gained through senior operational leadership in complex service environments.
• Evidence of continuous professional development in areas such as impact measurement, quality assurance, data governance, and service design, ideally with experience of implementing these systems from the ground up.
• Deep understanding of the lived realities of individuals experiencing poverty, violence, exploitation, or involvement with the justice system, and how these intersect with service design and delivery.
• Have lived experience - this could be where you have had life barriers.
• Comprehensive knowledge of safeguarding legislation and practice, including contextual and transitional safeguarding, with the ability to embed these principles into frontline services for young people and vulnerable adults, with a proven ability to embed safeguarding frameworks across diverse service settings and ensure compliance with legislation and best practice is desirable.
• In-depth understanding of funding models (grants, contracts, sub-contracts, partnerships) and how to align them with strategic business planning, risk management, and change leadership.
• Strong capability in navigating high-pressure environments, managing shifting priorities, and maintaining service continuity and staff wellbeing during organisational transformation.
• Skilled in stakeholder engagement and strategic partnerships, with a history of influencing policy and practice at national levels.
• Proven ability to design and embed operational frameworks that improve recording.

What's on Offer

• Competitive salary of £90,000 to £95,000 + Bens
• Opportunity to work within a respected Charity.
• Hybrid working in place.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced professional to take on a leadership role.

If you are passionate about making a difference and meet the criteria, we encourage you to apply.