Business Development Manager

About us We are an independent charity that supports, promotes and represents public libraries. Our work is driven and led by our membership, which includes almost every library service in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man). Across the areas we serve there are 176 individual library services with around 3,000 library branches serving over 61 million people. Our unique approach is to bring these services together to share experience, expertise and evidence – driving innovation and impact across the public library sector. While senior library leaders sit on our board and committees, we work with library staff at all levels. As well as providing practical support, training and advice to libraries, we represent them to government and raise their profile in the media. We also develop and lead national library projects with cultural, academic and corporate partners. We work to a strategic plan that runs until 2027, organised around four themes: drive, grow, connect and engage. We generate income from membership subscriptions, commissioned services, events and grants. As an Arts Council Investment Principle Support Organisation, part of our core funding in England comes from the Arts Council to help embed their Investment Principles across the library network. Our values We are supportive. We respond to the varied, emerging needs of our members and their communities to enable libraries to learn from each other, and other sector leaders, so that they can safeguard and improve their services. We are inclusive. We work with our members and partners to design and deliver our work and to determine our strategic priorities because we are committed to representing the diverse communities and libraries which we serve. We are open. We are in constant communication with our members and partners on all levels to learn from their experiences, reflect on our practice and develop our services. We welcome challenge and new directions for our work. We are ambitious. We believe that libraries are an essential part of the solution to a range of society’s needs. We promote innovation and collaboration to ensure that libraries are recognised locally and nationally. Working at Libraries Connected We are a friendly, collaborative team of around 20 staff based all around England and Wales. We value diversity and are committed to promoting an inclusive working environment. We strongly believe that inclusive and diverse organisations are not only better places to work, they are more innovative, make better decisions and are more successful. We value people who bring unique perspectives and knowledge to our team. We want to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To reduce bias, we shortlist candidates based on their responses to up to six application questions. These are designed to tell us about your values, experience, attitudes to work, and transferable skills. We do not ask for a separate cover letter or supporting statement. We offer flexible working as standard, helping work fit around family and caring responsibilities. Many of our staff work their hours in different ways, including flexi time and compressed hours. We are open to discussing what would work for you and be possible for the role. All roles are remote and are open to applicants who live anywhere in the UK. We provide staff with a home office set-up including laptop, monitor and phone. There is the option to work from our central London office or use a co-working space if it is not possible to work from home. We welcome requests for adjustments to our standard recruitment processes for anyone who needs them. Our Commercial Team We have a small commercial team with big ambitions for the sector. Currently , we hold a single commercial contract worth around £3m per year delivered through 12 libraries. Our aim is to reach a point where we have a menu of commercial contracts that all of our 176 member library services can choose to benefit from according to the skills and assets of their service, their focus and strategy and of course the needs of their communities. In the current funding climate for local authorities and local government services, these contracts are not just about the income and the services they can provide but about demonstrating nationally the power of the library sector, and how national services can be delivered locally through library services and the communities they serve. Our approach is to identify and secure contracts procured by national government – either directly or with partners to extend the libraries’ capabilities – with an eye to local delivery through the library services. This allows us to centrally hold and manage the risk of the national contract, leaving the library services to deliver themselves. We see libraries as a solution to many of society’s challenges and this is one route we use to bring the libraries into that solution. This area is part of our long term strategy – we are seeking to build the commercial team with this role and while it is initially a 12-month contract, our hope is that with the role in place we can generate the income to sustain and build on it.41bf1e1f-b16b-4260-a40a-17c77a06fd15