Prison Officer in Sittingbourne

This role is not eligible for new Skilled Worker visas in accordance with the current immigration rules. Successful applicants must ensure they have and maintain the legal right to live and work in the Civil Service and in the United Kingdom.

There is no such thing as a typical prison officer. Our officers come from different walks of life. You will build constructive, positive and professional relationships with prisoners who could be at the lowest point in their lives. Teamwork is essential; you will support colleagues and work as one team to keep the prison, prisoners and everyone who works here safe. You will be required to work various shifts and some weekends. In this unique career, you can perform many different roles in one day: a peacekeeper, a counsellor or a teacher. You will work directly with prisoners in a unique environment, helping to protect the public and make a positive impact.

The jobholder must be able to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in English or (where specified in Wales) Welsh. As this is a physically active job, you will need to pass a medical and fitness assessment as part of the application process and meet the required eyesight standard in both eyes (both with and without corrective lenses). For safety reasons, everyone training to be a prison officer needs a suitable standard of hearing (without the use of hearing aids).

You don’t need qualifications to become a prison officer. Personal qualities are more important. You need to show:

• Communication and influencing skills
• Commitment to quality
• Effective decision-making
• Care and understanding

We are recruiting not just for officers who are needed today, but for prison officers to fill vacancies at HMP Humber in years to come. We need officers now to fill vacancies at other prisons and that is why we are recruiting to this special futures scheme that guarantees you a prison officer role at HMP Humber permanently but for the first 23 months of your service you will be working at HMP Swaleside.

What’s on offer?

• We will pay your accommodation costs (up to £750 per month) for up to 23 months.
• You will be able to reclaim the cost of a monthly trip from HMP Swaleside to HMP Humber.
• You will also be paid a recruitment and retention bonus of £1500 after the first 12 month and 23-month period.

Your pay will depend on which prison you work at and your weekly shift hours. The figures below are based on a 37 hour contract which you will remain on until you have completed your initial training. You can then choose to increase your hours to 39 or 41 hours a week. Salaries quoted include an unsocial hours allowance - 37 hours Starting Salary - £37,246 - HMP Swaleside.

Prisons operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means you will have to cover various shift patterns that will include evenings, some nights, weekends and public holidays (these days are added to your holiday allowance). You may also have opportunities to work additional paid hours.

Benefits:

• 25 days’ annual holiday (rising to 30 days after 10 years’ service)
• Paid time off for public holidays and 1 extra privilege day
• Civil Service pension of up to 20% of your salary
• Cycle to work scheme, travel loans and other benefits

During the recruitment process you will be assessed on the behaviours, strengths and abilities you need to become an effective prison officer. These include:

• Communicating and influencing
• Managing a quality service
• Making effective decisions
• Caring

If your application is successful, you will need to undergo and clear pre-employment checks. This will include His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service Enhanced Level 2 vetting, and due to the security status of the establishment Counter-Terrorism Check (CTC vetting) is also required.

The rewards aren’t all you’ll gain from a role in the Prison Service. There’s the sense of achievement you feel when you’ve helped a prisoner to get their life back on track - the kind of experience you simply won’t find anywhere else.