Interim Data Governance & Systems Lead

Employment Type: Contract, 2 days/week, over 8 weeks

Location: Hybrid - 1 day a week (Wednesdays) in Brixton office

Seniority: Mid-level, Senior

Closing: 11:57pm, 12th Aug 2026 BST

Who we are:

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that’s rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids' health through improving school food & food education. We focus our efforts in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, where more than a third of children are entitled to free school meals, and diet-related disease is driving further inequality. We support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share learning and resources, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead. We’re backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role:

You are a pragmatic, highly analytical data professional who lives at the intersection of charity compliance and modern cloud systems. You understand that a rapidly growing £2m charity needs lean, workable frameworks, not corporate red tape that stalls delivery. You bring a strong track record of working within the UK non-profit sector, meaning you already understand the nuances of donor data, PECR regulations, and charity-specific workflows. You don’t just write policy documents; you enjoy untangling data flows and translating complex regulatory requirements into practical, everyday processes.

In this interim role, you will act as the "Product Owner" and "Information Governor" for our systems upgrade. You won't need to do the technical database configuration—we already have a trusted external Beacon CRM expert to handle the builds. Instead, you will bridge the gap between our teams and the technology. You will run discovery sessions with our Fundraising, Programmes, Finance and Operations teams to map their operational needs, translate these into a compliant data blueprint, and drive our Beacon expert to build them. Crucially, you won’t need to draft our Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs)—these are already in place. Your job is to audit our systems and processes to ensure we are physically complying with them, designing the exact workflows, access permissions, and data retention schedules needed to keep us airtight. Finally, you will advise us on how to sustainably own our data protection internally going forward.

Key responsibilities:

• Operationalising Our Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs): Translate Contracts into Code, Consent & Retention Alignment, Audit System Compliance.
• Business Analysis & Team Alignment: Run Discovery Sessions, Synthesise Requirements, Create Technical Specifications.
• Data Governance & System Security: Access & Permissions Architecture, Data Minimisation & Deletion, Record of Processing Activities (RoPA).
• Sustainable Ownership & Handover: Future Governance Design, Process Testing & Team Training.

Essential Skills and Experience:

• UK Charity Sector Expertise.
• Operationalising Compliance.
• Business Analysis & Stakeholder Mapping.
• Technical Translation & Developer Management.
• Practical GDPR & PECR Knowledge.

Desirable Skills and Experience:

• Passion for our mission to improve children’s health through school food.
• Familiarity with Beacon CRM.
• Information Governance Qualification.
• Transition & Training Experience.

Benefits:

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who works hard but believe in a healthy work/life balance. We were voted one of CODE Hospitality’s happiest places to work in 2024. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you’ll be able to contribute to and draw on various projects and strategic insights. We offer 33 days of holiday per year including bank holidays, 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period as well as wellbeing days over the summer school holidays. We also have a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, enhanced parental leave, and free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice. We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the Aviva Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process:

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to their day-to-day job. We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you’re ready to ensure you don’t lose your work if interrupted. Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A long list of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 mins online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview at our office in Brixton, London. Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks. The deadline for applications is 12th August.