Department and salary
Department - Sport System Institute Services
Salary - £41,574.01 - £44,535.11 pro rata (Grade 7)
Working Hours - 22.5 hours (3 days per week)
Contract Type - 12 months fixed term
Location - Sport Wales National Centre, Sophia Gardens, Cardiff
What you'll need
We are looking for individuals with a strong background in female athlete health and performance. You will have a strong understanding of female-specific health topics, including menstrual cycle, pelvic and breast health, and how these can influence athletes’ health, wellbeing and performance.
In addition to this background, you will have experience coordinating projects or programmes in high-performance sport, health or education, supporting female athletes across the pathway and working within multidisciplinary teams. You will understand developing athletes’ needs across training, competition and recovery, and how sports science and sports medicine can help address health and performance challenges.
You’ll be able to work across multiple project streams, developing strong relationships both internally and externally. You will be organised, curious and confident communicating with athletes, coaches, practitioners and partners, with the ability to work autonomously and collaboratively, handle confidential information sensitively and continually evolve how we support athletes across Wales.
How you'll contribute
Wales is a proud part of the UK high-performance system and has achieved unprecedented recent success on the world stage. We want to create the most science-informed sporting system in the world, enabling all athletes in Wales to thrive and making ‘winning well’ more likely.
We’re clear on the crucial role that health, wellbeing and the environment can play in improving athletes’ experiences. We want to empower those assigned female at birth to achieve their optimal health, wellbeing and performance by increasing knowledge, creating open and supportive environments, embedding positive behaviours and providing practical solutions.
You will contribute to our understanding and learning by working with athletes, coaches and practitioners in individual sports and across the Welsh system. You will help identify, explore, plan and deliver the female athlete health and performance project, including work on menstrual cycle health, pelvic health, breast health and emerging areas. You will also help translate the best available evidence into practice, develop accessible resources and share learning with everyone who needs to know.
Who you'll work with
You will build trusted relationships with athletes, coaches, practitioners and support staff in sports; colleagues across the Sport System Institute Services team and wider Sport Wales; external partners; clinical professionals; and other Home Country Institutes. You will coordinate expertise, align approaches and positively influence practice across development and performance pathways, creating psychologically safe, open and curious environments where questions, learning and constructive challenge are welcomed.
What happens next
You should read the full job description (attached above).
If you need any support to apply for this role, then please email kathryn.brown@sport.wales
Closing date 19th October 2026, 9am
Provisional interview date 29th October 2026
About Sport Wales
Sport Wales is the national organisation responsible for developing and promoting sport and physical activity in Wales. We are the main adviser on sporting matters to the Welsh Government and are responsible for distributing National Lottery funds. We aim to not only improve the level of sports participation at grassroots level but also provide our aspiring athletes with the support required to compete successfully on the world stage.
Our careers are funded by Welsh Government and the National Lottery. Find out more about Sport Wales’ relationship with the National Lottery.
More information about careers at Sport Wales can be found here.
Benefits
Important Information
We have bold ambitions for sport in Wales and we know that our people will be key to achieving them. That’s why we provide a varied benefits package:
- We are big supporters of a work life balance and offer a range of flexible working approaches
- 33 days annual leave Option to purchase 5 additional days per year
- Flexible working opportunities, including flexi-time (where applicable)
- Local Government or Scottish Widows Pension Scheme
- Comprehensive learning and development opportunities
- Use of on-site gym at the National Centre in Cardiff
- Employee Assistance (Counselling) Programme
- Civil Service Sports & Leisure Club Membership
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Free car park and bike shed
Sport Wales strongly advocates continuous learning and improvement. On your very first day of work, you will embark on a tailored induction programme and will be offered all the essential training to get you started.
Joining Sport Wales means joining a culture of learning and continuous professional development. Job specific training, lunchtime workshops, coaching and mentoring, improving Welsh language skills and long term study opportunities are all part of being on our team.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do at Sport Wales. To enable Sport in Wales to thrive, it’s vital that our workforce is fully representative of the wider population. A key strategic priority is to further diversify our workforce. Further information on this can be found in our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Statement here.
Everyone at Sport Wales brings something different, and so will you. Our commitment to recruiting and attracting diverse talent extends to actively encouraging applications from underrepresented groups including ethnic minority, LGBTQ+ and disabled people.
We adopt inclusive recruitment practices including blind shortlisting of candidates. We are a Disability Confident employer subscribing to the guaranteed interview scheme. We want to support you with adjustments through our process to make sure you can be at your best. These could include accessibility adaptions, an interview support person, assistive technology, extra time for written assessments or tasks. This is not an exhaustive list, we want you to be able to perform at your best so if you need any adjustments to be made please email the contact on the job advert who will be able to advise you.
We also recognise that the “confidence gap” may adversely impact the diversity of applicants we hear from. Research indicates that men often apply for jobs even where they only meet 60% of the listed criteria, whereas women tend only to apply when they fulfil all the specified criteria. Similar results have been found in studies relating to other marginalised groups. As such, if you believe you could be a good fit for one of our roles, even if you don’t necessarily meet every point of the job description, please don't hesitate – submit an application!
At Sport Wales, our behaviours are a critical part of the way we work - the way we deliver is as important as what we deliver. We have an agreed set of behaviours that we expect to see demonstrated by employees.
- Learn Together - Constantly exploring, testing and reviewing.
- Deliver Together - Sharing outcomes, nurturing open and honest relationships, providing robust feedback, constantly improving performance.
- Celebrate Together - Recognising our shared successes through effective partners.
- Acting with integrity - Understanding and respecting each other’s culture and values. Promoting equality and diversity.
- Adding Value - Ensuring the optimum mix of support, challenge, investment, skills and expertise to achieve our shared outcomes.
- Encouraging Innovation - Welcoming new ideas and approaches and supporting ambition and fresh thinking. Not being afraid to feel uncomfortable.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Chat GPT, Copilot and Gemini, can be helpful in various stages of applying for a job. You could use AI as a tool to research Sport Wales and the job you’re applying for. You could also use it to organise your thoughts, refine your writing or to help you prepare for an interview. We are keen to get to know you as a person so you must ensure AI aided content maintains your authenticity.
You must not use AI tools to:
- Exaggerate qualifications,
- Misrepresent your experiences
- Copy and paste generic responses without editing them.
At Sport Wales, we may use AI to generate ideas for Job Adverts, Job Descriptions, assessments, and interview questions, but we will never use AI tools to make selection or hiring decisions.
Female Athlete Health and Performance Project Lead (Maternity Cover) in Cardiff employer: Sport Wales
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