Save the Children UK is looking for an individual with extensive senior legal, governance and risk leadership experience to join us as our General Counsel and Company Secretary. This is an exciting opportunity to work closely with our Board of Trustees, Chief Executive and leaders across SCUK, as well as partners across the global Save the Children Movement, to help drive impact for children. 

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 General Counsel and Company Secretary, you will play a pivotal role in guiding decisions that align with our mission and values, ensuring that SCUK operates with integrity, transparency and strong governance. You will lead our Legal, Enterprise Risk and Company Secretariat functions, oversee internal audit performance, and act as a trusted adviser to the CEO, Executive Leadership Team and Board. You will integrate legal, governance and risk-thinking into organisational decision-making, enabling innovation and impact while ensuring compliance and safeguarding the organisation's reputation and obligations. 

In this role, you will: 

• Provide strategic legal, regulatory and governance advice to the Board, CEO and senior leaders, ensuring decisions are informed, risk-aware and aligned with our organisational priorities. 
• Lead and motivate the Legal, Enterprise Risk and Company Secretariat teams, setting strategic direction and fostering a high-performing, inclusive, values- and impact-driven culture. 
• Serve as Company Secretary, ensuring robust governance, effective Board and Committee management, and compliance with company law, Charity Commission requirements and the Charity Governance Code. 
• Oversee SCUK's enterprise risk management and internal audit functions, acting as Executive Sponsor for Global Assurance and ensuring effective risk, audit and compliance frameworks are in place. 
• Support organisational transformation and innovation, including new financial models, subsidiaries, and partnerships, while ensuring SCUK remains compliant, ethical and child-rights focused. 

About you 

You'll be an English qualified lawyer with broad experience across a range of areas, including some or all of charity and fundraising laws, corporate governance, commercial contracts, intellectual property, IT and corporate law.   

Ideally, you'll bring experience in an in-house legal role (including in a charity context) with some experience of working in international contexts.  

To be successful, it is important that you have: 

• Senior experience in a challenging role, including managing a team and working with senior executives and trustees.  
• Good understanding of the context in which Save the Children works. Experience and understanding of human rights law, child-rights based law and/or laws relating to sexual offences is desirable but not essential. 
• Strong strategic, analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to navigate complexity, influence at senior levels and provide clear, solution-focused advice. 
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to explain complex legal issues in accessible ways and negotiate effectively. 
• A high level of integrity, ethical judgement and commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and to fostering a culture of accountability and learning. 
• 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. 

Location & Ways of Working: 

SCUK offers ‘remote first' hybrid and flexible work arrangements to enable impact towards our strategic objectives and to support the wellbeing of our talented people.  

This role involves close direct work with the Board, CEO, senior leaders, staff, and partners. Often fast-paced and handling sensitive issues and relationships, the nature of this role means that you are likely to need to be in our Farringdon office for at least two days most weeks. Some out-of-hours work may be required. 

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