NED Strategic Lead

Waltham Forest Council; Greater London; On-site; GBP 71,000 - 86,000; Full time

Job summary

London Borough of Waltham Forest is seeking an experienced leader to head a high-impact transformation within the Neighbourhoods and Environment Directorate. You will drive cross-working and innovation, designing a best-in-class model of delivery that puts residents at the heart of neighbourhoods to reduce inequality and activate placemaking across the borough.

You will lead priority programmes, work with senior leadership and external partners, and shape new delivery models while aligning with

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex, multi-stream services and large change programmes.
• Ability to build strong relationships with senior managers and councillors to deliver priorities.
• Experience in resource management and innovative resourcing approaches.
• Able to manage conflicting workloads and respond to customer needs with clarity and pace.

Responsibilities

• Deliver and manage priority programmes for Neighbourhoods and Environmental Services.
• Develop and execute innovative solutions to complex challenges.
• Operationalise and deliver the Borough Plan within the directorate.
• Foster transformation and innovation across services with residents at the heart.
• Build relationships with senior leadership, staff, and stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for commerciality and design new delivery models.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder engagement

Programme management

Change management

Governance

Communication

Strategic thinking

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

Job Description

• Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest
• Salary: £71,119 - £85,677
• Contract type: Full-time/Permanent
• Working hours per week: 36
• Application deadline: 28/09/2026
• Proposed interview date(s): TBC
• Reference: 2332

About Us

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London's Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email [e-mail] so we can arrange an alternative application method.

About the role

This is an exciting role that will lead, plan, develop and deliver an expert professional service, and to drive cross-working & innovation within the Neighbourhoods and Environment Directorate. They will lead design thinking and innovation, designing a high quality and 'best in class' model of delivery which puts residents at the heart of neighbourhoods to reduce inequality, activate placemaking across the borough, and deliver on our key strategic objectives around crime, sustainability, and health inequalities.

Key Responsibilities

• Delivery & management of priority programmes for Neighbourhoods and Environmental Services and associated resources required to implement.
• Support & direct the development and execution of innovative solutions to complex challenges in Neighbourhoods and Environmental Services.
• Lead the work to operationalise and deliver the Borough Plan within the directorate.
• Foster a culture of transformation and innovation across all services, with service improvement for residents at the heart of everything we do.
• Establish excellent relationships with the senior Political Leadership, Strategic Leadership Team members, staff at all levels, peers, external bodies, and stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for commerciality across the directorate and collaboratively design new models of delivery that reflect this.
• Developing a forward-looking and proactive approach to managing emerging and strategic risks and issues across the directorate.

Qualifications and Requirements

• To be considered for this position, you should meet the following requirements:
• Must have direct experience of structuring, running, and managing complex and multi stream services, business change projects, programmes, and portfolios.
• Experience of building excellent relationships with Senior managers and Members, with a view to ensuring that corporate visions and priorities are delivered and that an excellent customer service is experienced by those stakeholders.
• Experience of detailed resource management and success in implementing new resourcing approaches.
• Experience of managing a mixed and varied workload of conflicting priorities responding effectively to the needs of all customers.
• Experience of report writing and communications for a variety of audiences, demonstrating numeracy and literacy and applying expert knowledge.
• Experience in dealing with a range of complex and contentious matters requiring a consistently high degree of support, persuasion and advocacy and an awareness of major policy objectives.
• Experience of matrix managing and coordinating employees carrying out work across a range of major functions.
• Strong leadership, influencing, people engagement, and people management skills.
• Ability to work autonomously to meet the objectives of the organisation.
• An ability to respond to unpredictable volume of work, with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn new ways to accomplish work activities and objectives.
• An exceptional communicator able to operate and empathise with stakeholders and business groups, influencing and gaining commitment to objectives.
• Strong leadership, influencing, people engagement, and people management skills.
• Excellent planning and organisational skills coupled with a strong focus on the delivery of the objective.
• Creative and innovative in finding solutions to complex problems.
• Knowledge of governance frameworks for both the constituent projects and the programme itself.
• Possess strengths in organisational, attention-to-detail, reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Educated to degree standard or equivalent.

Terms and conditions

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

We are a Home Office-licensed sponsor

however, for this specific role we are not able to provide Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. To be considered, you must already hold a form of UK work authorisation that does not require sponsorship.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Debbie Porter, Strategic Director of Neighbourhoods and Environment at [e-mail].

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at [e-mail].

Equal Opportunity Employer

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.