Head of Estates & Facilities

Henshaws is a northern charity supporting people with sight loss and a wide range of additional needs to live independent and fulfilling lives. Our vision is a world where everyone with a visual impairment or disability can go beyond expectations. The environments we provide are central to achieving this mission. They must be safe, welcoming and designed with dignity and purpose.

We are seeking a skilled and strategic Head of Facilities to lead all aspects of facilities management across our sites. This includes our Specialist College, residential settings, community services and our Arts and Crafts Centre. You will be responsible for ensuring our environments are safe, compliant, efficient and enable the highest standards of service for staff, students and visitors.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this role will oversee facilities, property management, maintenance, catering and housekeeping. You will line manage the Facilities Manager and Maintenance Manager and have full responsibility for external contracts, service standards, team development and budget oversight. You will work closely with colleagues across the organisation to ensure the delivery of responsive, joined up services that support operational excellence. You will also play a key role in longer term planning and contributing to strategic decision making, particularly around estates and compliance.

Salary: £24.03 per hour/£47,483.28 per annum

Hours per week: 38

Weeks per year: 52

Annual leave: 5 weeks plus 10 days bank holiday

Contract: Fixed Term - 12 months

Location: Harrogate and Knaresborough

Closing Date: Friday 27th June 12 Noon

Key responsibilities:

• Lead the delivery of facilities, maintenance, catering, property and housekeeping services across all Henshaws locations, ensuring they are safe, legally compliant and inclusive.
• Provide direct line management to senior staff and support wider teams to deliver high performance and a positive, values based culture.
• Monitor and manage budgets across all relevant areas, ensuring spending aligns with organisational priorities and represents good value.
• Manage and monitor the performance of contractors and suppliers, ensuring service quality, reliability and legal compliance.
• Introduce and oversee clear service level agreements and performance indicators to support a consistently high standard of delivery.
• Ensure all statutory and regulatory standards are met, including those related to education, care, health and food safety.
• Work with the Health and Safety Manager to implement strong safety practices across all teams and ensure a culture of prevention and readiness.
• Represent facilities and estates operations at senior leadership meetings and contribute to cross departmental planning and improvement projects.
• Keep up to date with developments in facilities and estates management to support sector alignment and long term improvements.

About you:

We are looking for someone who can bring a blend of operational expertise, strategic thinking and a strong commitment to quality and inclusion. You will have:

• Substantial experience in a senior leadership role in facilities or estates management, ideally within a multi site education, health, care or charitable environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop multidisciplinary teams across maintenance, catering and cleaning.
• Knowledge of legal requirements and inspection frameworks relevant to facilities supporting disabled or vulnerable people.
• Experience of managing budgets and delivering cost effective services across multiple departments.
• A confident approach to policy development, performance monitoring and continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills and the ability to build positive relationships both internally and externally.
• A relevant qualification or equivalent experience in facilities or property management.
• A flexible, hands on approach and a commitment to Henshaws' values of accessibility, empowerment and community inclusion.

Other information:

Henshaws Society for Blind People aims to employ a diverse workforce and is committed to equality of employment and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community. Henshaws is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people and vulnerable adults. It is a criminal offence for people barred from working in regulated activity to apply for roles that require them to work unsupervised with that particular group e.g. vulnerable adults, children or both. An Enhanced DBS with barring and reference checks will be sought from the successful candidate. Henshaws reserves the right to check social media accounts of all successful applicants.