Team Leadership and Support

• Support our delivery team (staff and Team Mates) to work collaboratively and effectively.
• Encourage collaboration, reflection and knowledge-sharing across deliverers.
• Support a culture of learning and continuous improvement across the team.

Partnership and Engagement

• Act as a strategic leader in shaping the engagement strategy with sporting bodies with a clear plan for who we partner with, why, and how, to drive awareness of our work and create easy access to programmes for athletes.
• Lead key strategic relationships with sporting bodies.
• Support wider SLT priorities in developing new corporate partnerships that align with the charity’s strategy and values.
• Lead our approach to partnership and collaboration with other (mainly) not-for-profit providers of athlete support services whose work complements our strategy.

Data, Learning, and Impact

• Develop and implement simple, effective frameworks to monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) to better understand and communicate our impact.
• Manage the Data and Impact Lead (when recruited later in 2026) to ensure programmes are delivering maximum impact and that the Theory of Change is thoroughly embedded.
• Create quality assurance mechanisms, such as live dashboards (via our Athlete Management System), to capture and regularly make sense of what we are learning from our work.
• Work closely with the delivery team to ensure that learning from our impact and evaluation work is embedded into programmes and operations.
• Champion sharing of learning beyond Switch the Play to support system change.

Charity Leadership

• A member of the Charity’s Senior Leadership Team contributing to the overall strategy and culture of the charity, taking an active role in fostering a positive workplace culture and in communicating the vision, strategy and impact of the charity to external stakeholders.

Skills and Experiences

Strategic Leadership

• Proven experience in developing and delivering successful strategies to support the personal development of people and have a transformational impact.
• Strong ability to drive multiple programmes and identify connections, gaps and priorities.
• Confident working with senior leadership and contributing to organisational decision-making. Experience of working as part of a senior leadership team within an organisation is preferred.

Programme Design and Development

• Experience of designing and developing impact-led programmes within the third-sector and / or high performance sport.
• Ability to translate strategy into practical plans and systems.

Data driven and Learning Mindset

• Experience designing and implementing monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) approaches (does not need to be highly technical, but must be confident and practical).
• Proficient in using data and insights to evaluate impact, guide decision-making, and refine strategies for supporting beneficiaries.

Team Leadership and Development

• Exceptional ability to lead, support, and inspire remote teams, fostering collaboration, driving high performance and building a positive culture.

Organised and Proactive

• Demonstrates a positive and proactive approach and attitude, using initiative to get things done, and manages and prioritises a busy workload with excellent organisation skills and attention to detail.

Strong Networking and Relationship-Building Skills

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including working across teams.
• Adept at building and nurturing relationships with colleagues, third partner deliverers, and stakeholders.

Adaptability and Resilience

• Thrives in a fast-paced environment, managing competing priorities with focus and flexibility.

Transition Knowledge

• Experience / understanding of sporting transitions and supporting sportspeople with their personal development and future planning (desirable).

Budget Management

• Experience of budget management and charitable governance linked to spend.

Organisational Change / Growth

• Experience of organisational change and growth phases.

Charity Knowledge

• Understanding of the charity sector and fundraising compliance (desirable).

Passion for Social Impact

• A resonance with the mission of Switch the Play Foundation and a commitment to supporting sportspeople to thrive in their lives beyond sport.

Benefits Package

• Competitive salary with an annual review.
• Employer pension contribution.
• Flexible working arrangements - we are a remote team and whilst you have core working hours we have created a culture of trust in people to find the right way to work that suits both team and individual needs.
• Generous annual leave package with 25 days annual leave plus UK statutory/bank holidays, and an additional 3 days off for the week of Christmas.
• An organisation that values you. As a smaller organisation, we value everyone’s individual perspective and voice and all team members are able to contribute to our strategic planning.
• A positive, supportive and collaborative culture and leadership style centred around our Team Code. Central to this is a focus on personal wellbeing and happiness.
• Expenses paid for any UK travel undertaken for Switch the Play Foundation purposes.
• Professional development, with an annual CPD budget and a commitment to aid your development and ambitions whenever possible.
• Access to professional memberships with the cost of memberships to relevant organisations covered.
• Tech support/equipment allowance, providing necessary tools for remote work.

A Note on AI

We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will be unlikely to be progressed to an interview.

Closing date: Thursday 6th August 2026