Shelter Technical Lead - Emergency Shelter

ShelterBox; Truro; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

ShelterBox is seeking a Shelter Technical Lead to provide technical leadership across emergency responses, guiding assessment, design, implementation and quality assurance of shelter programming. You will collaborate with response teams, partners and communities to ensure shelter solutions are evidence-based, contextually appropriate and aligned with Shelter Position Paper and humanitarian standards.

The role requires flexibility to deploy, work across contexts and promote safe, inclusive and

Qualifications

• Extensive understanding of the humanitarian sector with an emergency shelter focus.
• Excellent relationship builder and collaborator; able to adapt and embed new ideas.
• Experience joining ongoing humanitarian responses and providing shelter leadership under pressure.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical input into shelter project design and development with documented standards.
• Integrate into emergency response structures to offer immediate leadership to objectives.
• Advise on needs assessments to feed into design and delivery.
• Develop shelter designs, specifications and calculations per standards.
• Support partners' technical shelter knowledge and capacity development.
• Lead integration of technical assistance and capacity building for safer construction.
• Ensure environments include cross-cutting issues like gender, inclusion and safety.
• Support market and needs assessments to enable self-recovery in shelter.
• Provide technical support to emergency preparedness planning.
• Represent ShelterBox in national Shelter Cluster meetings and networks.
• Build relationships with peer organisations' shelter leads and promote learning.
• Communicate knowledge and learning across programmes and staff.
• Perform other duties as required.

Job description

Hours:

37.5 hours per week with occasional evening / weekend work

Position type:

Short-term 6-month Fixed Term Contract

Responsible to:

Head of Programme Quality

Direct reports:

None

Location:

Truro, Cornwall or UK remote working (with regular travel to Truro)

Travel:

Work away from home, this may be UK or overseas. Travel will include deploying to support in-country programmes, business trips, attending/delivering training. It is intended that this role will support responses overseas for up to 3 months at a time.

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Shelter Technical Lead provides technical leadership to ShelterBox emergency responses, deploying to disaster and conflict-affected contexts to support the assessment, design, implementation and quality assurance of shelter programming.

Working closely with ShelterBox response teams, partners and affected communities, the postholder supports the identification of shelter needs, vulnerabilities, capacities and recovery intentions, ensuring that response strategies are evidence-based, contextually appropriate and aligned with ShelterBox’s Shelter Position Paper and recognised humanitarian standards.

The Shelter Technical Lead provides technical shelter guidance throughout the project cycle, supports partner and community capacity strengthening, delivers technical training and mentoring, and promotes safe, inclusive and environmentally responsible shelter programming. The role also contributes to coordination, representation and technical learning, helping ensure that ShelterBox responses are effective, accountable and support affected populations to recover through appropriate emergency shelter and self-recovery approaches.

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

The successful candidate will be someone with extensive understanding of the humanitarian sector, with an emergency shelter focus. They will be an excellent relationship builder and collaborator, seeking to understand, appropriately adapt, champion, and embed new ideas. Able to work both operationally and strategically for the right solutions to improve our service to the communities we seek to support whilst recognising the value of acting with urgency.

This role is designed to increase short-term capacity across our response portfolio, and requires individuals who can rapidly integrate into established response teams, often in fast-moving and highly complex operational environments. Successful candidates will have a proven track record of joining ongoing humanitarian responses, quickly understanding context, priorities, systems and relationships, and delivering technical shelter leadership with minimal supervision. They will be collaborative, pragmatic and solutions-focused, able to build trust and credibility with colleagues, partners and affected communities from the outset. We are seeking individuals who remain effective under pressure, and consistently demonstrate sound judgement, adaptability and initiative.

DUTIES WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO:

Provide technical input into shelter project design and development, ensuring that shelter technical standards are documented in project sheltering strategies and tools, and that these standards are adhered to throughout the project cycle.

Rapidly integrate into emergency response structures and multidisciplinary teams, establishing effective working relationships with programme, operations, partner and technical colleagues to provide immediate technical leadership and support response objectives from the earliest stages of deployment.

Provide technical advice and assistance to needs assessments, ensuring that relevant information regarding shelter needs, and community shelter capacities and recovery intentions are understood and that this feeds into project design and delivery, including through participating in project design, contributing to concept notes/proposals.

In compliance with local, national and/or international standards and Building Regulations as required, develop the design (drawings, specifications, construction details and structural calculations and Bills of Quantities) for shelter solutions (emergency, transitional and/or durable).

Support partners technical shelter knowledge and capacity development, ensuring that their activities are aligned with ShelterBox Shelter Position Paper and organisational and global humanitarian standards.

Lead the integration of technical assistance, quality assurance and capacity building on the use of materials and construction techniques to build back safer

Ensure that shelter projects consider priority cross-cutting issues such as, environment, housing land and property rights, gender and inclusion, and safety; and that site activities comply with appropriate local, national, and international standards and regulations.

Support to market assessments and needs assessments to identify existing capacities and resources that can be leveraged to support self-recovery in shelter programming.

Provide technical support and advice to emergency preparedness planning.

Support the Programme Delivery team (Emergencies and Regional Programmes) to assess shelter technical capacity of partners.

Represent ShelterBox in national Shelter Cluster meetings and other relevant national networks, and coordination mechanisms.

Build and maintain effective working relationships with technical shelter leads in peer organisations.

Promote and actively support an organisational learning culture. Communicate knowledge and learning related to product, process and approach. Ensure relevant programme and wider staff are aware of key sector trends and recommended practice as appropriate.

Any other duties as required which are deemed appropriate to the role and grade of the post.