Are you an experienced leader within Children's Residential Care looking for your next challenge?
Our client is seeking a dynamic Operations Manager to provide strategic and operational leadership across multiple children's residential homes, supporting young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD), mental health needs and complex backgrounds.
Operations Manager – Children's Residential Services
Salary: £55,000
Location: South East England
Hours: Full-time, Permanent
This is an excellent opportunity to join a growing organisation where you will play a key role in driving quality, supporting Registered Managers, maintaining regulatory excellence and helping shape the future of children's services.
The Role:
You'll work closely with senior leadership and Registered Managers to ensure services consistently deliver outstanding care while remaining fully compliant and inspection-ready. You'll champion high standards, support operational growth, oversee quality assurance, and step into key leadership roles when required.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and support multiple children's residential homes.
- Drive quality assurance through regular audits and continuous improvement.
- Ensure homes remain fully compliant and Ofsted-ready.
- Support Registered Managers through coaching, guidance and performance development.
- Oversee safeguarding, risk management and therapeutic care standards.
- Assist with referrals, placement decisions and service development.
- Build positive relationships with local authorities and external professionals.
- Provide operational cover across key functions when required.
About You
Ideally, you'll have:
- Significant experience within Children's Residential Care.
- Strong knowledge of Ofsted regulations, safeguarding and quality assurance.
- Experience managing Registered Managers or multi-site services.
- A proven track record of leading service improvement and operational excellence.
- Commercial awareness, with experience supporting budgets, referrals or occupancy.
- Level 5 Diploma in Leadership & Management for Residential Childcare (or equivalent) is desirable.
- Previous experience as a Responsible Individual (RI) would be advantageous.
*Interested? Please send your CV in as a Word format only
**Please only apply if you are already eligible to work in the UK (indefinitely & without sponsorship)
***Not for you but you know someone suitable? Take advantage of the YourRecruit paid referral fee.
Due to the large numbers of responses we receive, despite our best efforts it is not possible to respond to every application. Therefore, only short-listed candidates will be contacted for this particular role and if you haven't heard from us within 7 days please assume you have been unsuccessful on this occasion. Please feel free however to apply for further roles and we will certainly keep your details on file and contact you with suitable vacancies. YourRecruit Ltd does not discriminate on the grounds of age, race, gender or disability and complies with all relevant UK legislation.
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