Head of Cattery (maternity cover)

Contract length: FTC up to 12-month maternity cover

Location: North West London

Hours per week: 35hrs, work Tuesday – Saturday, 9am – 5pm

Salary: Circa £32,000

Closing date for applications: Monday, 24th March 2025

First interview date: W/C 31st March 2025, Microsoft Teams; interested candidates are encouraged to apply as early as possible

Second interview date: W/C 7th April 2025, in-person interview

Every dog and cat in need deserves expert, personalised care and support, and to be loved. When you work for Mayhew, you understand that better than ever. We’re a passionate, committed and diverse team of c80 staff and c150 volunteers, here for dogs, cats and communities in the UK, in Afghanistan and in Georgia. We offer expert veterinary care, rescue and rehoming services, programmes in the community and guidance and support to improve the lives of dogs and cats in need.

At our North West London Home, we are recruiting an interim Head of Cattery who will share our compassion and commitment for animal welfare to provide front line leadership to our team of Cattery and Animal Care staff and volunteers. We care for up to eight cats and kittens on site, in addition to cats placed into foster homes. Our Head of Cattery is responsible for managing the day-to-day smooth running of our cattery and maintaining the wellbeing of all cats in our care, so that their individual physical and psychological needs are catered for adequately, and in line with our standards and ethics.

This is a high profile and hugely important role for Mayhew as our Head of Cattery oversees each cat’s journey through Mayhew from in-take to assessment and then to rehoming. Working with staff and volunteers across the Home, foster carers, adopters, other charities and rescues and members of the public, our Head of Cattery is instrumental in ensuring that our cats have all they need – from feeding, cleaning, enrichment and socialising to finding their perfect forever home. This role can be physically and emotionally demanding but is also hugely rewarding.

Leading a small team, our Head of Cattery is responsible for managing all aspects of our cat in-takes, adoptions and fostering, managing our capacity to ensure we help as many cats as we can and ensuring our cats are rehomed to a home suited to their individual needs as soon as possible. We offer a caring and supportive team and the chance to make a lasting difference to the lives of cats who rely on us.

Generally, you will:

• Lead and manage our Cattery and ensure the very best care and support is given to each of our cats
• Proactively, collaboratively and resourcefully maintain relationships with volunteers, foster carers, adopters, other rescue managers and other colleagues in the wider Mayhew community
• Manage your team in an inclusive and collaborative way, enabling and empowering them
• Engage and collaborate with senior staff to ensure effective delivery of our strategic and operational goals

To be successful in this role, you need relevant experience in:

• Experience working with cats, ideally in a shelter environment
• Strong knowledge of cat behaviour and welfare
• Experience of successfully motivating, managing, and developing a high performing team and managing performance
• Experience of effectively managing competing and changeable priorities, a high workload and multiple complex issues and tasks

Please note that successful candidates will be asked to evidence their Right to Work in the UK post-job offer – we do not hold a sponsor licence therefore we are unable to provide Visa sponsorship. We reserve the right to close this post at any time, should we receive a high volume of applications.