Project Officer, Literacy Champions (Dundee)

Closing date: 10am, Monday 23 February 2026

Salary: £26,000 per year pro rata (0.6 FTE) / £15,600 per year

Hours: Part time, 21 hours per week

Contract: Maternity cover contract for 9 months

Location: Home-working role based in Dundee

Interviews: Online, Monday 2 March 2026

We empower people with the literacy skills they need to succeed in life. Together we’re helping people change their stories. You could join us to support our work with children, families and volunteers in Dundee.

What You’ll Be Doing

We are looking for an enthusiastic and organised individual to provide administrative and programme delivery support for a range of activity as part of a small local team in Dundee. This will include Talk and Play Together, a collaborative and flexible service to support families by improving their wellbeing, their confidence in their literacy skills and their connections with each other, other families and local services. You will also contribute to other community-based activity including regular rhyme/story sessions and book-gifting with local organisations and at local community events.

You will be instrumental in delivery of our Literacy Champions project, which identifies, trains and supports volunteers who work with us to design new and exciting ways to promote literacy in their community. This may be in person or online, and includes everything from community book-swaps and reading corners to setting up homework clubs and creating videos. You will help identify potential volunteers and volunteering opportunities, and develop new strategies for recruiting, training and supporting these volunteers, as well as mobilising key community partnerships.

You will be based in Dundee, working from home with regular travel locally, as well as national travel when necessary. This will include coming to London for induction and regular staff days, which take place three times per year, as well as three team days per year that take place in other locations. All travel expenses will be covered. This role is subject to a Disclosure Scotland PVG check, in line with our safeguarding policy.

What We’re Looking For

You will be experienced in providing project support in a charity or educational context, including developing new ways of working and reporting against project plans and budgets. You should also have excellent knowledge of literacy issues and working with schools and community-based organisations. You will need to be a confident communicator who is able to make links in the community and build and maintain relationships with a wide range of people. Knowledge of volunteer management and safeguarding practice would be an advantage, as would experience of recruiting and training volunteers and delivering events. You will need to live in Dundee and have a good knowledge of the area. Due to the nature of delivery, you will need a full clean driving license and access to your own vehicle. You will also need to be able to manage physical aspects of the role, including managing book stocks and other resources.

Why our work is so vital

Literacy changes everything. It gives you the tools to get the most out of life, and the power to shape your future. It’s the key to knowledge, confidence and inspiration. It’s better results at school, and better jobs. If children grow up without the tools to communicate, without books to read or opportunities to write, it’s harder to get where you want to go. The National Literacy Trust is an independent charity helping people overcome these challenges and change their life chances through the power of words reading, writing, speaking and listening. From first words, through school days to training, jobs and beyond. We work collaboratively in local communities, focusing our work in 20 areas of the UK that are facing the biggest challenges. We support schools, developing the most effective tools and techniques and providing resources and programmes to engage and inspire children. We campaign to make literacy a priority for politicians and decision-makers. We support vulnerable adults, people in the criminal justice system and young offenders institutions to build their literacy skills.

What we offer you

Our team are passionate about our mission and we have a strong and positive working culture, based on shared values and respect. We offer a range of flexible working options and promote a workplace where you can be yourself and contribute to our success, whoever you are. As well as a competitive salary, we offer benefits including a generous leave allowance totalling 39 days (including bank holidays and office closure between Christmas and New Year), pension contributions of 8% of annual salary, a cycle to work scheme, employee assistance programme and other health and wellbeing benefits. We support flexible working and promote a workplace where you can be yourself and contribute to our success, whoever you are.

Application details

Our people are our most important asset and we value and respect diversity in all its forms (seen and unseen). We particularly welcome applications from those from Black and Asian backgrounds, as well as candidates with disabilities and from the communities in which we work. We would like to increase representation of these groups among our staff as we know greater diversity will lead to an even greater impact for our work.