Pet Welfare Assistant - Off-site Services

Blue Cross For Pets; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 12,000 - 25,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Holiday allowance 38 days

Wellbeing programs

GP access

Health plan

Pension

CPD support

Life assurance

Pet insurance discount

Family friendly policies

Recognition scheme

Volunteer days

Job summary

Blue Cross For Pets undertakes off-site services to support pets in foster or Home Direct schemes. You will help pets find suitable homes, support carers and clients, and ensure welfare standards are met while maintaining excellent customer service.

The role involves 18.75 hours per week on a two-week rota, with weekends and public holidays. Prior experience in animal welfare and empathy are essential for success in this position at our Radcliffe-based off-site team.

Qualifications

• Experience in animal welfare or related setting.
• Strong record-keeping and clear communication with stakeholders.
• Customer-focused service with a courteous approach.
• Good organisational and administrative skills, including computer systems.

Responsibilities

• Manage off-site pet cases within the foster/Home Direct schemes.
• Ensure welfare standards and rehabilitation plans are followed.
• Support the public face of Blue Cross with high-quality customer service.

Skills

Animal welfare

Record keeping

Customer service

Organisational skills

Driving licence

Communication

Teamwork

Empathy

Job description

Pet Welfare Assistant - Off-site Services

Application Deadline: 28 October 2026

Department: Rehoming & Fostering Services

Employment Type: Permanent - Part Time

Location: Manchester

Reporting To: Assistant Manager - Off-site Services

Compensation: £12,488 / year

Description

Contract: Permanent, part-time, 18.75 hours per week

Salary: £12,488 per annum (FTE £24,976 per annum)

Location: Radcliffe, Greater Manchester

Closing date: Wednesday 28th October 2026

Interview date: Wednesday 4th November 2026

We're recruiting a Pet Welfare Assistant for off-site animal care, for our Rehoming & Fostering team in Radcliffe!

Since opening our high street centre in Radcliffe in 2018, we've been proud to support pets and people across our local community and beyond. Rather than housing animals onsite, many of the pets we help stay with their current owners through our Home Direct scheme or are looked after by our experienced volunteer foster carers. This allows pets to remain in a caring home environment while they wait for their forever families. Although the role doesn't typically involve daily animal care, you'll be making a real difference by helping pets find suitable homes and supporting people when they need it most.

At Blue Cross, we're dedicated to providing the best care possible to pets in need. As a Pet Welfare Assistant for our off-site services, you'll play an important role in our mission, ensuring that every pet receives the love, attention, and support they deserve whilst they are in our offsite care.

More about the role

As a Pet Welfare Assistant - Off-site Services, you will be responsible for expertly managing a specific number of pet cases within the offsite pet care service, these can be rehoming pets in foster or Home Direct service.

You will be ensuring welfare standards are met and that rehabilitation plans are followed and supported for pets in foster homes. As we want to help as many pets as possible, this role will be responsible for ensuring the assessment of pets preparing for a new home in offsite services is completed in the quickest amount of time.

For many, the centre will be the public face of Blue Cross so you will need to ensure that good customer service is at the heart of every interaction. At Blue Cross we are ambitious, and the work carried out by our centres is key in achieving our strategy and ensuring that ultimately, we help more pets and people.

This is part-time role working an average of 18.75 hours per week on a two week rota which will include weekends and public holidays.

Week one: Sunday, Monday

Week two: Monday, Wednesday & Saturday

If you excel in an environment where you can see the difference you make every day, then this is the role for you. Interested? Then apply and let's work together to see if this is the role for you.

About you

The person will be empathetic, intuitive, and focused on animal welfare, with experience in a similar environment. You can assess pet needs, recognise behavioural signs, and have a basic understanding of medications like flea treatments and diabetes management. Self-motivated and collaborative, you bring practical, creative solutions for the best care outcomes.

Your communication skills are first-class, making you approachable and effective in sharing critical information with fosterers, clients, and stakeholders. You're resilient and emotionally intelligent, able to thrive in emotionally charged situations while supporting both clients and colleagues with empathy.

Knowledge, skills, and experience

• Experience of having previously worked or volunteered with domestic animals or in an animal welfare environment.
• Good experience of recording information and being able to accurately convey this when communicating with others
• Previous experience in working in a customer focused environment and used to achieving a high level of customer satisfaction.
• Good organisational and administration skills to include computer systems.
• A full driving licence.
• The ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross values.

Although not essential, it would be great if you also had:

• Qualification or similar experience in animal behaviour or animal training.
• Experience of cash handling.
• Experience of working to strict health and safety procedures.
• Understanding of safeguarding issues.

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.