Senior Early Years Improvement Advisor in Leicester

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Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: £49,221 - £53,826 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 8th February 2026

Interview Date(s): 9th March 2026

Due to the retirement of the current post holder we’re looking for an inspiring and proactive individual to work alongside other Senior Improvement Advisors and to lead a team of Early Years Improvement Advisors. In this role, you’ll coordinate work profiles and projects, provide strong line management, and deputise for the Improvement Team Manager when needed – helping to drive forward excellence across our Early Years provision in Leicestershire.

About the Role

As a Senior Improvement Advisor you will:

• Motivate, support, and coordinate our Early Years Improvement Advisors to achieve consistently high standards and deliver impactful support to providers ensuring high quality inclusive practice.
• Direct the Early Years Improvement Advisors to monitor and challenge Early Years settings including childminders to ensure providers rated less than Good/Expected by Ofsted receive the right guidance, training, and improvement support in line with our statutory duties.
• Promote Inclusion to ensure every child has access to high-quality, inclusive Early Years provision that meets their individual needs.
• Ensure equality, diversity, and the principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) are fully embedded in everyday practice across all settings.
• Lead and coordinate key projects and initiatives, collaborating closely with partners such as the Family Hubs, Leicestershire Partnership Trust and other organisations aligning with the Best Start in Life agenda.
• Share essential safeguarding messages, expectations, and local procedures with providers and stakeholders, helping to ensure best practice is understood and consistently applied.

The nature of the work will require a flexible approach to working, including out-of-hours, and an ability and willingness to travel to various locations. An enhanced with barred list DBS check is required for this post.

About You

To apply for this post, you must be able to evidence in your application how you meet the following criteria:

• A relevant level 6 qualification with outstanding early years practice in the early years sector or a school and evidence of further appropriate professional development.
• Experience of successful leadership and motivation of a group of staff within an appropriate early years environment.
• A good working knowledge of the childcare sector including experience of staff development and training.
• Excellent understanding of statutory duties and learning relating to the EYFS phase and Early Years SEND code of practice.
• Experience of observing and evaluating quality learning and providing feedback as part of the early years improvement processes.
• Experience of coordination of projects, including monitoring and evaluating and an understanding of data analysis and its uses.
• A good understanding of equality and diversity and how this should be promoted for the children of Leicestershire.
• Effective presentation skills which include good communication skills, both written and oral.
• To be assertive, confident and sensitive to the needs of others.
• Have the ability to cope with pressure, be organised and meet deadlines.
• Ability to develop and maintain good working relationships and professional partnerships with people from all backgrounds with the ability to enthuse and motivate others where lived experiences of diverse backgrounds can be shared and celebrated.

Our main aim is to improve outcomes for children of Leicestershire. If you are successful, you will be supported by the Extended Leadership team to be creative and solution focused as well as having access to a variety of professional development opportunities.

People who work in our service say that we are a caring, approachable, friendly service who work well together and with other professionals. Staff are made to feel valued and that they are making a difference.

As a Children and Family department we are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma informed responsive department. We will strive to create a safe, compassionate environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust, respect, hope and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity, by nurturing connections through relationships, making a deliberate effort to know and understand people.

We have an Inclusion and Diversity working party that meets regularly, and the local authority has other supportive groups where you will have the opportunity to learn and connect with others. We operate on a fully inclusive employment policy and therefore welcome without exceptions candidates who have protected characteristics. Our one prerequisite is that you are the best at what you do. You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion. In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process. Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working? We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ Plus communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support. By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Us

About Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire County Council is a Disability Confident, Menopause Friendly, Mindful Employer, Fostering Friendly, Forces Friendly, and Cycle Friendly organisation. In August 2021, we also signed up to the Race at Work Charter. We are strongly committed to promoting equality and opportunity, championing employee wellbeing and investing in staff training and development. Our aim is to work with communities and partners to deliver public services that make Leicestershire the best possible place to live and work for everyone. Our employees play a key role in supporting this goal and helping us deliver the vital services we provide to the people of Leicestershire.