Participation & Partnerships Operations Manager

Save The Children; Cardiff; Hybrid; GBP 42,000 - 54,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous Annual Leave

Family Leave

Special Leave

Volunteer Leave

Pension & Life Assurance

Employee Discounts

Health & Wellbeing Support

Job summary

Save the Children UK is seeking an experienced Participation & Partnerships Operations Manager based in Wales (Cardiff office). The role sits in the UK Impact department and will oversee a portfolio of funded work focused on ending child poverty and improving outcomes for children and families in Wales.

You will ensure strategy translates into delivery, manage plans, budgets, partnerships and risks, and enable teams to work with autonomy.

Qualifications

• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build effective relationships.

Responsibilities

• Provide portfolio-wide oversight, challenge and coordination to deliver impact and spot issues early.
• Shape how the portfolio operates, enabling colleagues to lead their own work with autonomy and accountability.

Skills

Relationship Building

Analytical Thinking

Operational Skills

Planning & Delivery

Job description

Participation & Partnerships Operations Manager - 7432

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.

A bout the Team

This role is based in the UK Impact department. This part of the organisation influences debates, opinion and policies in favour of children's rights. We use powerful evidence and thought leadership to build advocacy strategies that ensure governments know about the problems we have identified and the solutions. We work with children, families, campaigners and partners across many organisations to secure change. We create and disseminate engaging media content about children's lives to shape debates, put pressure on decisionmakers and build public support. Our vision is to make sure families have the money, services and power to end child poverty. It's our mission to help build communities of people who care about children, listen to what's important to them, and work together to make things better.

Save the Children Cymru operates bilingually in Wales and we are committed to offering staff the opportunity to learn Welsh in line with our accredited Welsh Language Offer.

As this role is based in Wales (with Cardiff as the working office) you will need to be based in Wales to be able to fulfil the role. There is an expectation to be in the office at least 1 day a week.

About the role

This is a key operational role at the heart of a portfolio of funded work designed to help end child poverty and reduce its impact on children and families in Wales. The two streams of work focus on poverty and money, and poverty and climate change and the environment.

You will make sure strategy translates into strongdelivery bringing together people, plans, budgets, partnerships, risks and resources to keep complex work moving and ensure funding delivers meaningful impact.

Working closelywith the Head of Participation & Partnerships, you will provide the portfolio-wide oversight, challenge and coordination needed to deliver well, spot issues early and make good decisions. You will have real scope to shape how the portfolio operates, while enabling colleagues to lead their own work with autonomy and accountability.

Skills and experience needed for this role:

• Relationship Building & Collaboration: Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate clearly, build effective working relationships and bring people together to achieve shared goals.
• Analytical Thinking & Problem-Solving: A proactive and solutions-focused approach, with the ability to identify potential operational issues, assess risks and escalate concerns appropriately.
• Operational & Organisational Skills: Excellent organisational skills, with experience of developing, tracking and maintaining workplans to ensure activities, milestones and deliverables remain on schedule.
• Planning & Delivery: Confidence in working to deadlines and managing competing priorities, with an understanding of budgets, expenditure monitoring and risk management.

If you enjoy making complex things work, solving problems, bringing people together and turning plans into results and want your work to contribute to better outcomes for children and families this could be the right role for you.

This is a permanent role but 20% of this post is funded through the National Lottery Community Fund's Supporting Great Ideas programmebetween 2026 – 2029.

What we offer you

We promote flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, and wellbeing both at work and beyond, and offer a wide range of benefits designed to reward your hard work and inspire you to help improve the lives of children every day.

Some of the benefits youcan expect include:

• Generous Annual Leave – Starting at27 daysper year (pro rata for part-time employees) increasing with service up to32 days, plus public holidays and our annual 'Save the Children Day'.
• Family Leave –Up to39 weeksofmaternity/adoption pay(including up to21 weeksfull pay)and paternity/adoption leave of10 weeksfull pay (plus statutory entitlement).
• Special Leave – Up to10dayspaid leave per year (pro rata) for urgent or exceptional personal circumstances, without using annual leave.
• Volunteer Leave – Up to 3dayspaid leave per year to support volunteering and give back.
• Pension & Life Assurance – Helping youplan for the futurewithup to 7% employer pension contributions.
• Employee Discounts –Accessthousands of deals across groceries, retail, tech, travel, fitness, and more.
• Health & Wellbeing Support – Including access to a 24/7 Virtual GP and Employee Assistance Programmeand Counselling, eye care support, and seasonal flu vaccinations.

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.

Location & Ways ofWorking:

Themajority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but at times you will be required to come to your contracted office ( usually between 2–4 days per month, depending on the needs of your role, team, or service ). For many roles, this is likely to be the minimum required to deliver impact.

This will be discussed and agreed with your manager / team and we encourage candidates to discuss our ways of working in more detail at interview stage.

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,inclusiveandequitablewhere all childrenhave the opportunity tochange their world. We apply this to ourworkforce,and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse,equitable, and inclusive organisation where structural inequality is actively addressed, and all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can thrive.

Weencourage applications from people of all backgrounds, and are especially interested in hearing from peoplewith diverse and intersectingidentitiessuch as lived experience of poverty, people of faith,people of colour,people with disabilities,with experienceof migrationand/or refugee status,care-experienced people,theLGBTQIA+community andindividualswith experience living in diverse families.

We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruitpeople who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.We know that different voices working together will enable us to do our work better, improving the lives of children around the world.

Salary Structure:

Save the Children is committed to paying staff in a fair and equitable way and will benchmark all salary offers in line with the pay of existing staff. To see our full offer please visit this link: Save the Children | Careers

Interview Expenses:

Candidates should note that unfortunately it is not our policy to reimburse expenses accrued when attending interviews at Save the Children UK unless you are requested to attend an interview in an alternative location to where the role is based.

Pre-employment Checks:

Any Employment with Save the Children UK will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:

• A satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International Criminal Record Check (If applicable)
• Receipt ofsatisfactory references - As a committed member of the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme , as part of our onboarding process, Save the Children UK will undertake a minimum of 2 references, and any additional references required to collectively cover the last 5 years of your employment history.
• Proof ofeligibility to work in the national location for this role

If you have any questions, we have an FAQ section here .

Mae Save the Children Fund yn gwmni cofrestredig cyfyngedig drwy warant ( Rhif Cwmni 178159). Elusen gofrestredig yng Nghymru a Lloegr ( Rhif 213890), yr Alban (SC039570) ac Ynys Manaw ( Rhif 199). 1 St John's Lane, Llundain , EC1M 4AR.

Full time (flexible working options available)