Learning & Practice Development Lead in Guildford

Up to £45,000 per annum + Mileage Expenses

Hybrid | Hampshire, Surrey & Worthing

Full Time | Permanent

Are you passionate about developing people rather than simply delivering training? Do you enjoy coaching teams, improving standards and creating a learning culture where people genuinely want to develop? We're recruiting on behalf of a well-established, family-run care provider for a newly created Learning & Practice Development Lead role supporting five care homes across Hampshire, Surrey and Worthing. This is a fantastic opportunity to shape learning and development across the organisation. Rather than simply delivering mandatory training, you'll help build a culture where learning is embedded into everyday practice, supporting managers and frontline teams to continuously improve the quality of care they deliver.

Working closely with operational leaders, you'll have the autonomy to develop mentoring, buddying and coaching initiatives, while helping create a long-term academy-style learning programme that supports future organisational growth.

The Role

This is a varied, operational role combining learning and development, quality improvement, coaching and workforce development. You'll spend most of your time working directly within services, supporting managers and colleagues, identifying learning opportunities, improving competencies and embedding best practice into everyday care. Success in this role isn't measured by the number of training sessions delivered—it's measured by stronger teams, improved practice, increased competency levels and a positive learning culture across the organisation. This is a hybrid role, with approximately four days each week spent supporting teams across the organisation's five care homes and one day working remotely. Occasional evening and weekend training sessions may be required to ensure colleagues working night shifts also have access to high-quality learning and development opportunities.

Key Responsibilities

• Deliver mandatory, practical and service-specific training across five care homes while improving training compliance and workforce competency, supporting the organisation's goal of maintaining 95%+ compliance.
• Coach and mentor colleagues within services, ensuring learning is embedded into day-to-day practice and identifying development needs early to improve performance through coaching before formal performance management is required.
• Support managers to embed best practice, improve standards and develop confident, capable teams.
• Conduct competency assessments, observations, spot checks and practice reviews.
• Support governance, audits, incident reviews and quality improvement initiatives, embedding lessons learned into practice.
• Promote reflective practice, professionalism and excellent resident experiences across all services.
• Develop engaging learning resources, competency frameworks and practical development tools.
• Design and implement mentoring, buddying and coaching programmes.
• Help establish a long-term internal academy-style learning and development programme.
• Maintain accurate training and competency records while supporting inspection readiness and regulatory compliance.

About You

We're looking for someone who enjoys developing people and building relationships. Personality, coaching ability and communication skills are just as important as previous experience. You'll ideally have:

• Experience within Learning & Development, Practice Development, Quality, Clinical Education, Governance or a similar role within health or social care.
• A supportive, approachable and collaborative leadership style.
• Experience coaching, mentoring and developing colleagues within operational care environments.
• The ability to influence managers and frontline teams through relationships rather than authority.
• Strong understanding of governance, quality assurance and CQC compliance.
• Experience delivering training and competency assessments.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
• A proactive approach with the ability to identify learning needs and drive continuous improvement.
• A relevant Health & Social Care qualification or equivalent operational experience.
• A recognised training qualification would be advantageous but isn’t essential.
• Practical trainer qualifications such as Moving & Handling and Fire Safety would be highly desirable.
• Full UK driving licence with willingness to travel extensively across Hampshire, Surrey and Worthing.

What's on Offer

• Up to £45,000 per annum.
• Mileage expenses fully paid.
• Hybrid working with approximately 4 days in services and 1 day working remotely.
• Opportunity to shape a brand-new position.
• Autonomy to develop mentoring, coaching and academy-style learning programmes.
• Supportive, family-run organisation with a genuine people-first culture.
• Potential future performance-related bonus.
• Genuine opportunity to influence quality, workforce development and the future direction of learning across the organisation.

If you're passionate about developing people, building positive learning cultures and making a lasting impact on the quality of care, we'd love to hear from you.