Contract Manager in Slough, Berkshire

We are looking for a kind, compassionate and resilient Contract Manager to join our Mental Health service in Slough. This role is responsible for the operational and strategic management of all contracts in your designated patch, ensuring high-quality service delivery and positive outcomes for individuals with mental health and complex needs.

As a Contract Manager, you will lead and support a team of front-line staff, providing clear direction, performance oversight, and ongoing professional development. A key aspect of the role is fostering strong leadership and cultivating competence within your team to drive continuous improvement.

What you’ll do:

• Drive business planning activities within your contract, ensuring relevant and challenging objective setting and ongoing performance tracking, developing turnaround action plans as may be necessary.
• Using sound financial and accounting principles, manage contract budgets to deliver on corporate and local contract financial targets.
• Successfully lead and motivate your team to ensure the championing of and maintenance of a positive local culture within your service.
• Work to continuously improve staff competence, ensure ownership of all staff issues and speedy and effective conflict resolution.
• Responsible for reporting all staff changes to HR and Payroll departments, as appropriate e.g. starters, leavers, additional hours etc.
• Responsible for maintaining quarterly staff succession plans.
• Deliver effective, professional and commercially focused briefings and supervision meetings with staff and ensure that information, reporting & communications flow up/down is effective.
• Responsible for managing and allocating customers to support staff (casework management).

This is not an exhaustive list of all the duties and responsibilities that may be required from time to time and is subject to change in accordance with the needs of Look Ahead.

About you:

• Ability to lead and motivate staff to deliver excellent services.
• Is fundamentally calm and resilient, does not let emotion adversely affect them or obscure their judgement.
• Has a practical and logical mind.
• Excellent organisation skills.
• Thrives on change and enjoys dynamic diverse environments.

What you’ll bring:

Essential:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Experience of managing contracts and resources and delivering to budget and performance targets.
• Experience of delivering to housing management performance targets.
• Experience of effectively managing and developing staff to ensure delivery of services performance targets within contract.
• Experience of successfully managing external partnerships to ensure successful delivery of services.
• Holds relevant CMI/NVQ Level 4 or other Business/Management Qualification.

Desirable:

• Other relevant professional memberships and/or specialist qualifications.

Look Ahead is a leading, not-for-profit care and support provider in London and the South East. Our vision is to build better lives through social care and housing in local communities. We have a strong social purpose and we live and work by our values: Excellence and innovation, Caring and Compassionate, Inclusive and Trusted, Partnership and One-Team.

Look Ahead is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults at risk, and expects all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment.