Log In
Sign Up
United Kingdom
King’s College London Hiring for Head of Social Mobility & Education Job at London, England , UK Full Time
br{display:none;}.css-58vpdc ul > li{margin-left:0;}.css-58vpdc li{padding:0;}]]>
Job Description
About Us
The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.
At King’s College London Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department we believe that a young person, no matter what their background, should be able to have high expectations for their future and equal access to education and career opportunities. We run a wide variety of programmes to empower young people from under-represented backgrounds to access and succeed at degree-level study. The Head of Social Mobility & Education leads the Social Mobility team and is a vital member of the leadership team, alongside the Head of Widening Participation & Fair Access and Head of What Works.
We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.
About the Role
The Head of Social Mobility & Education is a critical strategic, and operational role within the Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department.
The post holder will have responsibility for delivering King’s social mobility remit and how this relates to education in particular. This incorporates:
1. Strategic development of pre-16 activity, including work across early key stages, GCSE attainment, and linked work with schools on broad issues affecting educational progression.
2. Leading our partnership projects, ensuring they fulfil strategic objectives and demonstrate return on investment.
3. Developing and delivering work that affects access to education holistically across communities and on specific issues e.g. immigration and citizenship.
4. Leading our parent and family engagement activity, including our involvement in the national expansion of Parent Power.
5. Taking responsibility for our community organising partnership with Citizens UK and how community organising techniques are used to deliver our strategic priorities.
This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to develop in a leadership position overseeing strategic work, and who wish to use their skills to develop high quality, impactful activity to address educational This is an opportunity to grow your skills in leadership, influence, strategic thinking and long-term planning within social mobility and higher education.
We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.
This post will be offered on a fixed-term contract for 12 months.
This is a full-time post, but we welcome applications from candidates seeking a flexible work pattern within our necessary service operating hours.
Key responsibilities
- Establish and deliver the department’s social mobility strategy, identify relevant areas of work and communicate approach.
- Lead the operational and strategic direction of the department’s partnerships, Outreach for Medicine, Pre-16, and Community Organising teams.
- Provide effective line management through identifying workload, giving direction, goal setting, performance management and support.
- Provide expertise in strategic budget discussions about the allocation of resource. Maintain regular oversight of all departmental expenditure and accounting.
- Advise the Associate Director so that risks against meeting targets can be anticipated and avoided, impact of change can be mitigated, and best practise shared.
- Prepare reports on complex and sometimes sensitive policy developments, to alert the Associate Director of developments and trends which may have an impact on the college’s widening participation and fair access strategies.
The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.
Skills, knowledge, and experience
Please clearly address how you meet the
essential criteria
in your application, and where possible how you meet the
desirable criteria
as well.
Essential criteria
- Relevant work experience and/or education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in widening access or addressing social inequalities (in particular education) in universities, civic organisations or in the third sector. Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications or other training
- Experience of leading a team to develop and deliver higher education, social mobility, or widening participation programmes
- Experience of managing others’ work priorities and performance
- Ability to communicate complicated and specialist information orally and in writing
- Ability to build relationships and bring people from a range of backgrounds together to lead internal and external networks to deliver long term projects
- Ability to make collaborative and independent decisions that have far-reaching and long-lasting impact
- Ability to use judgement to resolve complex problems
- Ability to interpret trends and patterns in data to inform the direction of work
- Ability to plan and lead strategically important and significant areas of work
- Ability to set objectives for a team that consider the wider priorities of the department
- Ability to identify the training needs of a group and plan interventions to address them
- In-depth understanding of the widening participation agenda and the role of higher education in social mobility
Further Information
Please submit a personal statement when applying for this vacancy, clearly setting out how you meet the essential criteria, as this is how we shortlist applications.
Interviews will be held in person and will consist of competency-based questions linked closely to the essential and desirable criteria mentioned here.
Although we have made improvements over the last number of years, our team is still under-represented in terms of staff from global majority ethnicities, LGBTQ+ identities, and from people with disabilities. We encourage applications from all backgrounds, communities and industries, and are committed to employing a team that has diverse skills, experiences and abilities.
Interviews are scheduled to take place during the week beginning 14 November.
