Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity to join us as Chief of Staff, supporting our CEO and Executive Leadership Team. This is a unique opportunity to play a key part in shaping Save the Children's leadership agenda and in ensuring that internal operations run effectively and transparently.

Note: This is a hybrid position and will require being based in our Farringdon office three days per week, with some out-of-hours work and UK/international travel depending on the CEO's schedule and key events.

About Us

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.

About the role

As Chief of Staff, you will serve as a strategic partner to the CEO and Executive Leadership Team, driving alignment across the organisation's priorities, facilitating effective decision-making, and enabling a strong internal culture through communications and engagement.

The CEO's office sits at the heart of organisation and is frequently the first point of contact for numerous individuals and organisations, both national and international.  It's an exciting place to work and we need a motivated and organised self-starter to help support our CEO and Executive Leadership Team.

In this role, your key performance outcomes will include:

• Strategic Leadership Alignment and Delivery 
  The CEO's priorities and agenda are proactively managed and aligned with organisational strategy. Executive leadership meetings are well-coordinated, with clear decisions, follow-through, and cross-functional collaboration that drives delivery of strategic objectives. 
• Engaged and Connected Organisation 
  Senior leadership internal communications and engagement initiatives effectively connect staff to the mission, strategy, and leadership. Organisational updates, messaging, and all-staff events strengthen trust, morale, and understanding across all levels of the organisation.
• Trusted Executive Operations and Stakeholder Support 
  Deliver high-quality, timely briefings, speeches, stakeholder communications and advice to the CEO. Relationships with internal and external partners are supported through clear messaging and reputational awareness, enabling the CEO and ELT to engage with influence and collborate with maximum impact.  
• High-Performing and Accountable Team 
  Direct reports have a clear purpose, are motivated, supported, autonomous and accountable. Safeguarding, compliance, and risk awareness are embedded in all operations, and the CEO Office runs efficiently, with streamlined systems that support responsive and agile leadership. 
• Ensure the development and implementation of Safeguarding procedures relevant to the role including identifying Safeguarding risks, supporting safe reporting mechanisms, and promoting compliance with safeguarding standards and best practice to protect children, community members, staff and volunteers from harm.  

About you

To be successful, it is important that you demonstrate:

• Excellent strategic decision making, problem solving and analytical skills.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong project management and planning skills, including ability to think creatively and innovate.
• Superior organisational skills and the ability to work quickly, calmly and efficiently under pressure, producing high quality work to tight deadlines.
• Understanding of the policy and content of Save the Children's work.
• An agile mindset and approach, with the ability to adapt plans and review approaches, the willingness to constantly learn, including from positive and constructive feedback, and to work in ambiguity and emergence. 
• Ability to develop strong relationships and collaborate with a diverse group of colleagues, networks, leaders, and managers.
• Experience in a leadership role and of people management.
• Commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission and values.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.

To learn more about the position, please review the Job Description in the attached Documents.

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.

Ways of Working:

 The role will require being based in our Farringdon office three days per week, with some out-of-hours work and UK/international travel depending on the CEO's schedule and key events.

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, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think. 

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here. 

To see our full statement please visit this link: https://jobs.savethechildren.org.uk/our-policies/diversity/

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 of satisfactory references
• proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role

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

For anything else you can email us on: careers@savethechildren.org.uk