Advisor, Cash, Livelihoods and Child Poverty in London

Save the Children International has an exciting opportunity for an Advisor, Cash, Livelihoods, and Child Poverty to join our global team.

Team and Role Purpose

The Breakthrough team drives strategic, technical, and operational leadership for Save the Children’s global goals in order to achieve programmatic breakthroughs while ensuring high-quality, evidence-based, and integrated programming across our portfolio. The team delivers context-responsive, demand-driven technical support to Country Offices to enhance programme effectiveness in line with local needs and global priorities. The team also advances sector innovation and learning through external engagement in clusters, in inter-agency groups, with donors, peer agencies and foundations. The team is responsible for new business development and resource mobilization efforts as well as developing partnerships to strengthen our collaborative impact globally.

Role purpose

The Advisor is accountable for the technical quality and strategic coherence of CVA, Livelihoods, and Child Poverty programming across an assigned portfolio of regions and priority countries (with a proposed focus on Asia). The role owns the global technical standards, guidance, and tools for the thematic areas, exercises technical sign-off in quality assurance processes; leads situational assessment and response analysis for major emergency responses; drives the Cash Plus innovation and evidence agenda; and represents Save the Children with authority in relevant global forums and platforms. The Advisor provides matrix technical leadership, supervising Country Office’s technical staff during deployment and surge responses, managing consultants as relevant, and leading the global Community of Practice (CoP) to embed high quality, inclusive programming across humanitarian and development contexts.

Principal Accountabilities

• Provide strategic and technical leadership for Cash, Livelihoods and Child Poverty programming across the portfolio, ensuring high-quality, evidence-based programmes aligned with SCI strategy, donor requirements and organisational standards.
• Act as the primary technical focal point for Country Offices, supporting design, implementation, monitoring and continuous improvement of inclusive and impactful programmes.
• Lead the development, maintenance and application of global technical standards, tools, guidance and learning resources, ensuring consistent quality assurance and accountability across programmes.
• Provide technical oversight and sign-off for CVA feasibility and risk analyses, response option analyses, and other agreed technical review processes for humanitarian responses and programme investments.
• Lead or support strategic programme design, situational assessments, response analyses and proposal development, ensuring strong technical quality, appropriate budgets and integration of global priorities.
• Promote integrated and multi-sectoral programming, including Cash Plus approaches, to strengthen outcomes across child poverty, nutrition, child protection, education and other relevant sectors.
• Provide matrix leadership by technically supervising surge and Country Office staff, managing consultants, and leading communities of practice to strengthen organisational capability.
• Support emergency preparedness, response and recovery planning, including market, gender and disability analyses, while fostering collaboration across thematic and functional teams.
• Facilitate learning, innovation and knowledge sharing across Country Offices and global teams, promoting the application of best practice and lessons learned to improve programme impact and sustainability.
• Deploy and travel as required (up to 40%) to support priority countries, while championing Save the Children's commitments to safeguarding, anti-harassment, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Experience and Skills Essential

• Extensive international experience in Child Poverty, Cash & Voucher Assistance programming across humanitarian, recovery and development contexts, working with a broad range of donors and sectors.
• Knowledge and experience of Market Based Programming (MBP), Market Systems Development (MSD), M4P, Social Protection, HEA, Cost of the Diet, EMMA and MIFIRA.
• Demonstrated technical leadership in livelihoods and economic empowerment programming, including climate-resilient approaches, financial inclusion, graduation pathways, Climate Smart Agriculture, anticipatory action and sustainable livelihoods.
• Extensive experience designing and managing cash and voucher interventions, including transfer value calculations, feasibility assessments, risk analysis and operational delivery.
• Extensive experience building equitable partnerships and advancing localisation objectives through capacity strengthening, knowledge sharing and collaboration with local, national and global stakeholders.
• Experience representing organisations in inter-agency, donor and global technical forums (e.g. CALP, clusters and sector working groups).
• Proven ability to provide technical leadership, coaching and capacity strengthening to country teams, with strong influencing, negotiation and communication skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex data, drive programme improvements and apply emerging evidence and best practice.
• Extensive experience in programme design and proposal development, including successful donor fundraising and business development.
• Commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, with the ability to work independently and travel internationally (up to 40%), including in challenging operating environments.

Education and Qualifications Essential

• A post-graduate degree in International Development, Economics, Social Policy, or a related field. A university degree combined with professional experience could be considered as a substitute for a post-graduate degree.

Working at Save the Children International

Save the Children is the world's leading organisation for children, employing ~25,000 staff. We save children's lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Through our work in 116 countries, we put the most deprived and marginalised children first. We know that great people make a great organisation, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued. The work here is challenging but is also immensely rewarding. At Save the Children, you will be in good company, working with talented, like-minded individuals who are determined to ensure that all children survive, learn, and are protected. Your contribution will help ensure children's voices are heard at the highest levels, and that we achieve our global strategy, Ambition for Children 2030, and reach every last child.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Equal Opportunities

DEI is core to our vision, values and global strategy. Save the Children is committed to creating a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation, and one which will support us in our vision to ensure every child attains the right to survival, protection, development, and participation. We are committed to equal employment opportunities, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, disability, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, caring or parental responsibilities, age, or beliefs and religion. We are committed to diversifying our staff to better represent the communities we serve and actively welcome underrepresented groups to apply. Reasonable adjustments will be made should any candidate invited to interview require this.

Application Information

Please attach a copy of your CV and cover letter with your application. A full copy of the role profile can be found at SCI Careers. It is recommended that you save a copy of the role profile as it will no longer be available after the advert closes. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and the job advert may be closed earlier than advertised subject to the volume of suitable applicants. Please submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Candidates who are successfully shortlisted should expect to hear from us within 2 weeks of the advert deadline.

Our Recruitment Process

• Application review by our recruiting team based on your CV and cover letter
• Two-stage competency-based interviews with the hiring team
• Some recruitment may include an additional assessment or case study stage, or a third stage interview
• If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, followed by your contract subject to passing background checks

We need to keep children and adults safe so our selection process includes rigorous background checks and reflects our commitment to the protection of children and adults from abuse. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our Code of Conduct and all policies and procedures relating to Anti-Harassment, Health and Safety, Safeguarding, and DEI and Equal Opportunities.

Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.