Sullivan Brown Resourcing Partners - HR Recruitment Experts
Senior OD Lead
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About the Role
We are delighted to be recruiting for Northumberland County Council who are seeking an exceptional professional to join the People and Culture Senior Leadership Team as Senior OD Lead.
Northumberland County Council is undergoing a major transformation to modernise how we work, strengthen leadership, and create a modern, inclusive and high-performing organisation that puts residents first. As part of this, they are redesigning their Organisational Development & Culture (OD&C) service and are now recruiting a Senior OD Lead (Engagement, Culture & Insight) to play a pivotal role in shaping how the organisation listens, learns and acts.
This is a senior specialist OD role within the Culture, Leadership & Engagement practice, with a particular focus on organisational listening, engagement strategy and cultural insight and will shape how insight informs cultural action and behavioural change at scale.
Reporting to the OD&C Senior Manager (Practice Lead: Culture, Leadership & Engagement), you will:
- Take a portfolio view of engagement, listening and culture insight work across the organisation
- Lead the design and delivery of organisational listening approaches, including staff surveys, pulse activity, qualitative research, listening cycles and feedback loops
- Synthesise complex organisational signals-such as survey data, lived-experience insight, engagement patterns and narrative feedback - into clear themes, insight and recommendations
- Influence leaders using evidence, storytelling and sense-making
- Lead or co-lead OD squads on high-priority cultural and engagement themes
- Support and enable OD colleagues to deliver high-quality, insight-led OD work
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This role is ideal for a senior OD practitioner with deep expertise in engagement, insight and organisational narrative, who is comfortable contracting and collaborating at senior level and translating data into meaningful cultural action and behavioural change.
Embedding Agile OD & New Ways of Working
From June 2026, OD&C moved to a new operating model based on agile OD, including a single intake route, triage, backlog prioritisation and cross-practice OD squads delivering short cycles of work. You will play a central role in leading and co-leading squads on significant priorities.
About You
We are looking for a senior OD generalist with deep specialist expertise in engagement and insight, who brings:
- Significant experience in organisational listening, engagement mentor culture insight
- Strong qualitative and quantitative insight capability
- Confidence influencing senior leaders using evidence and narrative
- Ability to diagnose patterns and root causes, not just report data
- Experience leading OD work in complex organisations
- A collaborative, enabling approach to developing other OD practitioners
- A mindset aligned to agile, iterative OD
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You may come from an OD, organisational psychology, research, engagement, culture/change or related background. We are interested in the quality of your OD judgement and insight practice, not a specific job title.
Why Join Northumberland?
- A rare opportunity to shape how an organisation listens and learns
- A senior OD role with real influence and visibility
- The chance to build organisational-level engagement and insight capability
- An OD&C service with strong senior sponsorship
- Attractive local government benefits including generous leave, pension, agile working and wellbeing support
- 26 days annual leave plus public/bank holidays, rising to 31 days after 5 years of service (pro rata for part-time employees)
- Automatic enrolment into the Local Government Pension Scheme
- Flexi scheme (if applicable) - up to 2 days flexible leave available per month (pro rata for part-time employees)
Whilst they offer hybrid working, there is a requirement to attend County Hall on a regular basis, along with a need to support services areas in person as required.
How to Apply
Please share your CV with Melanie Bolton, Sullivan Brown Resourcing Partners in the first instance. melanie@sullivanbrown.co.uk
Closing date: Friday 7th August 2026
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