Functional Skills Teacher-Employability Skills Coach

Location: HMP Dovegate, Staffordshire ST14 8XR

Salary: £33,738 - £37,652 plus excellent benefits

Schedule: 08.15 am – 5.00pm, Monday to Friday. 40 hours per week

As a Functional Skills Teacher in our Justice and Immigration team, you’ll deliver high-quality teaching across core subjects that help learners build confidence, gain essential skills, and progress towards brighter, more independent futures. Your work will directly support rehabilitation by improving literacy, numeracy, digital capability, and employability.

This role is an opportunity to shape learning that creates meaningful change. Through purposeful teaching, inclusive practice, and a strong commitment to learner development, you’ll help individuals unlock new opportunities and build skills that support successful reintegration into their communities.

What you’ll do as a Core Tutor

• Deliver interactive and inclusive teaching in Employability Skills
• Create and maintain Individual Learning Plans (ILPs), monitoring progress and adapting support as required.
• Develop schemes of work and lesson plans, including flexible “roll-on, roll-off” programmes.
• Embed reading, employability, functional skills and British Values into all teaching sessions.
• Contribute to curriculum development and continuous improvement of learning resources.
• Manage accreditation, assessment, marking and learner certification.
• Maintain a safe, positive, and inclusive learning environment aligned with prison protocols.
• Keep accurate learner records, registers, ILPs and exam documentation.
• Work collaboratively with education managers, prison staff, and partner organisations.

Does this sound like you?

You’ll be a great fit for this role if you have:

• A minimum Level 3 teaching qualification (AET or equivalent) and Level 3 assessor/IAG qualifications.
• Experience delivering coaching in Employability Skills.
• Strong planning, organisation, and communication skills.
• A commitment to inclusive practice, learner-centred support, and continuous improvement.
• Confidence working in a structured environment with safeguarding and compliance requirements.

Vetting and checks: An Enhanced DBS check is required for this role. This includes spent and unspent convictions, cautions, and any relevant information held by local police, in accordance with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and safeguarding requirements. You will also complete an Occupational Health Questionnaire to allow us to provide any support needed for you to succeed in the role.

What we offer

• Holidays: 23 days plus bank holidays (increasing to 25 days with tenure)
• Pension: Up to 6% contributory pension scheme
• Training and development: Over 1,100 internal courses available, funding for qualifications and apprenticeships (including L3 Team Leader and L5 Operations Manager apprenticeships), mentoring opportunities, and a focus on internal progression
• Health and wellbeing: Employee Assistance Programme, Bupa Anytime HealthLine, wellbeing app, 30% off at Serco-managed leisure centres, and 24/7 access to a virtual GP service
• Discounts: Discounts across around 1,000 retailers, from food and clothing to days out, entertainment and travel
• Charity: Paid volunteering day, tax-free charitable giving through Payroll Giving Scheme, donate your pennies from your monthly pay to the Serco People Fund Charity
• Employee networks: Our networks support inclusion and connection by providing spaces for collaboration, learning, and belonging. They represent and empower all our colleagues including LGBTQIA+ employees, women, parents and carers, people with disabilities, veterans, and people from all cultural backgrounds.

Let’s impact a better future, together. Apply today.

About Serco: At Serco, not only is the nature of the work we do important, everyone has an important role to play, from caring for vulnerable people to managing complex public services. We are a team of 50,000 people responsible for delivering essential public services around the world in areas including defence, transport, justice, immigration, healthcare and citizen services. We are innovators, committed to redesigning and improving public services for the benefit of everyone.

Apply: Please click on the apply button to complete your application. Occasionally we receive a large volume of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment.

At Serco, we see people first and foremost for their performance and potential. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive organisation that supports the needs of all. As such we will make reasonable adjustments at interview through to employment for our candidates and strongly encourage applications from a diverse candidate pool. We are open to discussions around flexibility and flexible working. We operate a hybrid work structure in many of our business areas. We are proudly Disability Confident Leader employers and holder of the Gold Inclusive Employer Standard. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities at an interview.

For help with your application please contact 0345 010 4000.

At Serco we support fair access to employment for those with unspent criminal convictions through the ‘Ban the Box’ pledge (some may be exempt due to the nature of the role and the security clearance required). Please contact our recruitment team directly on 0345 010 4000 to discuss.