Head of Community Engagement in Stirling

The Head of Community Engagement is responsible for fostering a safe, supportive, and positive campus and living environment for all students, staff, and visitors. The post holder provides strategic and operational leadership across campus community experience, residence life engagement, welfare support, behaviour management, security operations, and 24/7 campus response.

The role ensures that campus operations run smoothly and that the wellbeing, safety, and sense of belonging of students, staff and guests is central to service delivery. The post holder leads the campus Residence Life and Campus Support Teams including Security, Night Management and Portering teams, and works closely with partners across the institution to ensure early intervention, pro-active support and consistent responses to student conduct, safety concerns, and occupancy-related issues.

Description of Duties

• Leadership and Service Management
  • Provide strategic leadership for community experience, residence life, security and campus operations across the estate.
  • Lead, manage and develop the Residence Life Manager and Night Operations Manager, ensuring strong communication, accountability and performance standards.
  • Ensure campus operations function effectively 24/7, maintaining visibility and high service standards across teams and sites.
  • Promote a culture of continuous improvement, proactive engagement, and student-centred service delivery.
  • Responsible for performance development, HR processes, training and ongoing support for security, residence life, campus support and night management teams.
  • Foster a collaborative, supportive and inclusive team culture across day and night operations, promoting a visible, compassionate and values-based leadership approach.
• Community Development & Residence Life
  • Oversee the development and delivery of the Residence Life programme, ensuring it supports wellbeing, academic transition, community cohesion and belonging.
  • Lead early intervention, pastoral support and proactive welfare engagement across residences.
  • Ensure reporting staff are trained to identify signs of vulnerability, risk, and welfare concerns, providing appropriate referrals and follow-up.
  • Responsible for overarching case management for student behaviour, wellbeing and conduct, assigning cases and ensuring appropriate follow-up, providing briefings to and escalating to the Director of Accommodation Services where appropriate.
  • Building strong working relationships with colleagues across the institution, ensuring that holistic approaches are taken to case management.
  • Establishing and overseeing the approach to occupancy breach follow-up, ensuring a fair, clear and supportive approach is taken, and being responsible for handling escalated occupancy breaches and breaches of the Code of Student Discipline.
  • Supporting with the investigation and resolution of complaints, particularly complex and escalated complaints relating to campus and accommodation operations and experience.
  • Provide advice, guidance and escalation on serious incidents affecting residential communities and the campus estate.
• Campus Safety & Operational Planning
  • Oversee security and campus support operations, ensuring a welcoming, responsive and proactive approach is taken to customer service and incident response.
  • Lead on SafeZone and related security technologies/platforms.
  • Ensure effective deployment and scheduling of staff for security presence, emergency response and routine patrols.
  • Ensure all spaces are prepared, set-up and taken down.
  • Maintain and contribute to operational protocols for incident reporting, escalation and post-incident learning.
  • Ensure compliance with safeguarding, health and safety, PREVENT obligations and emergency response requirements.
  • Support the Director of Accommodation Services in the creation of annual operational plans, service targets and performance indicators.
  • Collaborate on the transition between student use of accommodation and commercial use, ensuring that resources are managed efficiently and effectively across the department.
  • Lead data-informed service and budget planning, evaluating service utilization, incident trends and student feedback.

Essential Criteria

• Degree-level qualification or equivalent experience.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, welfare support, risk management and incident response.
• Significant leadership experience in student accommodation, residential life, campus operations, security or comparable environment.
• Experience leading diverse operational teams.
• Experience in developing service improvement plans and leading operational change.
• Proven ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment.
• Flexibility to work evenings, weekends, and participate in an on-call 24/7 rota.
• Confident communicator able to build rapport and trust across stakeholders.
• Ability to problem solve, analyze trends and develop strategic proposals.

Desirable Criteria

• Understanding of/training in regulatory frameworks relating to campus safety, such as PREVENT, Terrorism Act 2025, safeguarding and health and safety.
• Experience working in a university of multi-residential campus environment.
• Experience managing emergency response processes or security operations.

Additional Information

• Full time.
• Open ended.
• The closing date for applications is midnight on Monday 09 February 2026.
• Interviews are expected to take place on Wednesday 25 February 2026.
• There is an expectation that work will be undertaken in the UK.
• This role will require a Level 1 Disclosure check. An offer of employment will be subject to a satisfactory outcome of this process.
• This role may be eligible for sponsorship depending on candidate circumstances under SOC code 1251.

The University of Stirling recognises that a diverse workforce benefits and enriches the work, learning and research experiences of the entire campus and greater community. We are committed to removing barriers and welcome applications from those who would contribute to further diversification of our staff and ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion is woven into the substance of the role. We strongly encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds including gender, identity, race, age, class, and ethnicity.

For a full description of duties and essential/desirable criteria please click the apply button, which will take you directly to the University Website.