IPS Employment Specialist

IPS Grow; Southend-on-Sea; Remote; GBP 26,000 - 38,000; Full time

Job summary

Get Set UK in Southend is seeking an IPS Employment Specialist to support people into paid work, travelling across Essex and collaborating with NHS teams. You will manage caseloads, support job readiness, and help individuals find and sustain employment with ongoing guidance.

Full training and supervision are provided, with a focus on respectful, person-centered support and building lasting employer relationships to secure meaningful roles.

Qualifications

• Experience providing one-to-one advice, guidance or practical support to adults or young adults, with evidence of helping people towards clear outcomes.
• Evidence of building trust, motivating people and keeping professional boundaries.
• Experience managing a caseload, appointments or competing priorities, with accurate records and reliable follow-through.
• Confidence communicating with different people and professionals, and a willingness to approach employers and build new relationships.
• A track record of working towards outcomes or targets, with results to show, and continuing when progress is difficult.
• Evidence of commitment, reliability and consistently high standards of work.
• Confidence using Microsoft Office and digital case-management systems, and the ability to learn new ones.
• The ability to explain your last five years of employment, including any gaps or short-term roles.
• A valid driving licence, reliable access to a vehicle for work and appropriate business-use insurance, for regular travel across Essex.
• Desirable: employability, careers coaching or supported employment experience; IPS, NHS, recruitment or employer-engagement experience.

Responsibilities

• Working with each person to build a vocational profile, get job ready and turn what they want into an active job search.
• Working as part of an NHS clinical team, attending multidisciplinary meetings and sharing wellbeing and risk concerns.
• Approaching employers directly, understanding what they need and finding advertised and hidden opportunities.
• Helping people stay in work, including people already employed who are struggling, working with their employer where they agree.

Skills

One-to-one support

Relationship building

Caseload management

Professional communication

Outcome-oriented

Reliability

MS Office

Digital case-management

Explain gaps in work history

Driving licence

Careers coaching

Employer engagement

Tools

MS Office

Job description

Could you help someone turn their skills and aspirations into a job they choose and can sustain? Join Get Set UK as an IPS Employment Specialist in Southend and help people achieve meaningful paid employment.

Deadline: 16th November 2026

• East of England
• Full-time

Job overview

You can follow one person from a first conversation about what they want to their first day in a new job, and keep going until the job sticks. Our Essex team care about their local community and take pride in the social impact the work creates. It is challenging, and that local connection makes it rewarding.

We are part of Palladium, an international consulting and implementation business that operates in more than 50 countries. Palladium belongs to the Global Infrastructure Solutions Inc. (GISI) family of companies, which reported approximately $18 billion in annual revenue for 2025 and serves clients across more than 100 countries.

You will receive full IPS training and fidelity guidance, management support, reflective supervision and regular feedback. Be Considerate and Own It describe how we work: respecting each person's choices and following every action through.

Role

Get them job ready. Get them the job. Help them keep it.

In a single day in Essex you might sit in a meeting with an NHS clinical team, ask someone whose health has kept them out of work not what is wrong but what job they want, then call an employer who has never heard of Get Set UK. Three conversations, one aim: a paid job someone chose and can keep.

That is the work of an IPS Employment Specialist. No IPS experience is needed; full training is provided. Recruiters, employment advisers and coaches already have many of the skills, and so do retail and hospitality managers who have developed people and worked to targets.

The opportunity

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) helps people with ongoing healthcare and wellbeing needs into competitive paid work. If someone wants to work, you help them get job ready, start a personalised job search and keep going with support once they are in the job.

No one else will make your employer calls, and plenty of them will end in a no. You will travel daily between clinical, community and employer locations across Essex, so this is not a home-based role. You will manage your own caseload and diary, work to job-start and sustained-employment outcomes, and hold clear professional boundaries while hearing difficult personal information.

Responsibilities

• Working with each person to build a vocational profile, get job ready and turn what they want into an active job search.
• Working as part of an NHS clinical team, attending multidisciplinary meetings and sharing wellbeing and risk concerns.
• Approaching employers directly, understanding what they need and finding advertised and hidden opportunities.
• Helping people stay in work, including people already employed who are struggling, working with their employer where they agree.

What good looks like in this role. These describe how we work here. They are not extra requirements.

• Deliver results: you review your own progress, and when a job search stalls you own it, work out why and change your approach.
• People and Communication: you encourage people to take their own next step and keep every conversation clear, respectful and caring.
• Get it right: you are honest, follow established practice, ask a colleague for another view when needed and learn from setbacks without getting defensive.
• Strategic direction: you build effective relationships and try a new approach when the usual one meets a no.

The person

Essential (you need all of these):

• Experience providing one-to-one advice, guidance or practical support to adults or young adults, with evidence of helping people towards clear outcomes.
• Evidence of building trust, motivating people and keeping professional boundaries.
• Experience managing a caseload, appointments or competing priorities, with accurate records and reliable follow-through.
• Confidence communicating with different people and professionals, and a willingness to approach employers and build new relationships.
• A track record of working towards outcomes or targets, with results to show, and continuing when progress is difficult.
• Evidence of commitment, reliability and consistently high standards of work.
• Confidence using Microsoft Office and digital case-management systems, and the ability to learn new ones.
• The ability to explain your last five years of employment, including any gaps or short-term roles.
• A valid driving licence, reliable access to a vehicle for work and appropriate business-use insurance, for regular travel across Essex.
• Desirable (welcome, not required): employability, careers coaching or supported employment experience; supporting people with health and wellbeing needs or other barriers; IPS, NHS, recruitment or employer-engagement experience. Coming from outside employability or health support? Show us how your skills transfer.