Employability Programmes Manager

The Sutton Trust is the UK’s leading social mobility charity. Our programmes empower young people to access life-changing opportunities, and our research influences national change to deliver a fairer future. Over the next year the Trust will celebrate its 30th anniversary and as part of its strategy, we have ambitious plans to grow our access to the workplace programmes in new and innovative ways.

The Trust’s Employability programmes support talented young people from lower income backgrounds to successfully access highly competitive universities, degree apprenticeships and professional careers. Delivered in partnership with the UK’s top universities and major employers, the programmes support over 1,000 students each year from across the UK.

The successful candidate will lead on the development of a brand-new Tech and Digital Pathways to the Professions programme due to launch in September 2027, working with colleagues across the organisation. They will also manage and deliver a range of other cohort-based employability programmes delivered both online and in-person.

Main duties include:

• Leading on the design, planning and delivery of the new Tech and Digital programme (pre 18), alongside planning delivery for the existing employability programmes including our current Careers Plus (post-18) programmes in the tech & digital sector.
• Designing a suite of interventions and activities for the new Pathways to Tech & Digital programme for launch in September 2027 leveraging our existing Sutton Trust theory of change, previous evaluations and models adapted from existing programmes.
• Delivering existing employability programmes including our current Careers Plus (post-18) programme to launch the next cohort in April 2027, liaising with the Alumni team to ensure alignment with overall alumni engagement.
• Planning, project managing and delivering a range of online and in-person activities within those employability programmes including launch events, career insight activities, academic taster sessions, skills workshops, group projects, networking, information and advice sessions.
• Liaising with colleagues in the Employer Engagement team to plan and deliver work experience placements, insight days and employer volunteering across programmes.
• Designing engagement and communications plans for programmes to ensure strong student engagement and retention.
• Building and managing relationships with industry partners from across a range of sectors, who fund and support delivery across the programmes.
• Managing partnerships with external delivery organisations (including universities and third sector facilitators) to ensure the sessions and content of the programmes meet their intended aims.
• Ensuring all events and activities are risk assessed and delivered in line with both health and safety and safeguarding policies and best practice.
• Liaising with colleagues in the evaluation team to manage the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning across programmes supporting strong response rates, stakeholder reporting and adapting programme design and delivery based on feedback.
• Leading programme transition and change, balancing the delivery of existing programmes with the development and implementation of new initiatives.
• Managing programme budgets and reporting processes.

Team responsibilities include:

• Line managing a Programme Assistant who supports across programmes.
• Working with the Development team, managing the evaluation and reporting of programme activities including reporting/presenting to funders.
• Other duties as necessary from time to time.

Organisational responsibilities include:

• Being conscious of how GDPR relates to your area of work and monitoring and raising issues or potential issues as they arise.
• Being aware of and actively working to include safeguarding within all aspects of work and raising issues or potential issues as they arise.
• Acting as a representative and ambassador of the Sutton Trust when interacting with external contacts and particularly (prospective) donors.
• Engaging with fundraising and/or donor-related activities if required.
• Familiarising yourself with the Trust’s Employee Safety Handbook, and your individual health and safety duties and responsibilities.
• Reporting any health and safety concerns or issues as they arise, either at home or in the office, as appropriate.
• Ensuring line reports are completing all health and safety training.
• Regularly checking in with line reports on any health and safety concerns, particularly when lone working/working from home.
• Acting as the Trust’s first point of contact, by providing a responsive and efficient service for general external and internal telephone and email enquiries.

HR responsibilities include:

• Line managing, motivating and proactively supporting the Programmes Assistant in their professional development.
• Following the Trust’s HR policies relating to line management and engaging with relevant processes as necessary.

Person Specification:

We welcome applications from individuals who have experience in:

• Managing projects/programmes, including event design, planning, administration and delivery.
• Developing and launching new programmes or initiatives, using evidence, insight and innovation to deliver high quality programming.
• Experience of leading programme change and transition.
• Leading young person-facing events and activities, including awareness of best practice in supporting student needs, ideally with experience of digital delivery.
• Facilitation of sessions with young people in person or online.
• Building and managing relationships with both contracted and voluntary delivery partners as well as diverse stakeholder groups including corporate or funder relationships.
• Using data to design and deliver programmes.
• Monitoring and evaluation, reporting, and administration.
• Budget management.
• Working within or an understanding of the not-for-profit sector.

We are also looking for an individual who:

• Is sympathetic to the aims of the Trust and its mission to address educational disadvantage.
• Demonstrates a high degree of initiative and leadership when delivering projects and events.
• Has strong organisational skills including the ability to multi-task and prioritise.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and strong analytical skills.
• Has first-class interpersonal skills - a natural ambassador able to represent the Sutton Trust in a range of settings.
• Is eligible to work in the UK.

Terms of Appointment:

• Contract: Full-time, Permanent.
• Salary: £43,000 - £44,000 per annum.
• Working location: Minimum of two office days per week. Our home working policy gives staff the option to work from home for up to 60% of the time, with approval from their line manager.
• Office location: The Sutton Trust, 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP.
• Hours: The standard working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. This role is likely to also be required to attend events/meetings outside of normal working hours during weekday evenings and occasionally at weekends, in line with organisational policies.
• An DBS check may be required.
• Please note that we are unfortunately not a licensed visa sponsor.

Interviews:

Applications should reach us by Tuesday 29th September, with first round interviews held over Zoom on Wednesday 7th October, and second round interviews held at our London offices on Thursday 15th October.

Safeguarding statement:

The Sutton Trust believes that a child, young person or vulnerable adult should never experience abuse of any kind. We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to keep them safe. Therefore all posts undergo a safer recruitment process, including but not limited to, disclosure of criminal records where necessary and eligibility to work in the UK. We have procedures in place to promote safeguarding and a safe culture at the Trust.

Contextual recruitment:

The Trust is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity and that all applicants receive equal consideration for employment. We strongly encourage individuals from all backgrounds, including those underrepresented at present at the Trust, to apply for this role. As such we particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities, Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ and from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds. We are committed to an inclusive and welcoming place to work and know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for the young people we support. We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates throughout our recruitment process and during employment. We also operate contextual recruitment at the Sutton Trust. Our application process gives you the option to include information about your background, such as whether you were eligible for free school meals, whether your parents went to university, or whether you attended a state school.