Service Development Lead (REF 127)
Do you have a talent for developing impactful services and securing opportunities that make a real difference?
Are you driven by the chance to transform the lives of young people for the better?
We are looking for a Service Development Lead to help drive the impact and effectiveness of our Education & Skills and Mentoring services. This role is all about ensuring young people receive the highest quality support by improving operational processes, strengthening service delivery, and developing partnerships that lead to real progression opportunities.
You’ll play a key role in enhancing recruitment, quality assurance, and service insights, helping us continually improve and ensure our programmes create lasting change. If you’re a proactive and detail-oriented professional with a passion for youth development, we want to hear from you!
Sport 4 Life UK is driven by a set of values that define our mission:
- All that we do is focused on CHANGING the LIVES of young people.
- We are a TEAM
- QUALITY runs through the core of the organisation
- We do not stand still – we are a PROGRESSIVE organisation
Ready to join our mission? Then here’s your chance to join us in shaping and supporting the next generation.
Job summary
Salary
£28,000 – £31,000
Contract type
Full-time
Number of vacancies
1
Start date
Immediate
.
Application deadline
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 (midnight)
Interview date
Wednesday 30th April 2025
Location
Sport 4 Life office (Digbeth)
Job description
- Performance and Quality Assurance
- Service Development and Improvement
- Stakeholder and Partnership Management
The Service Development Lead will play a key role in ensuring the smooth operation, quality assurance, and effectiveness of Sport 4 Life UK’s Education & Skills and Mentoring services. They will focus on optimising processes, enhancing service quality, and driving the recruitment and progression of young people into education, training, and employment. Additionally, they will develop insights to support the achievement of organisational targets and continuous improvement.
Person Specification
Essential
- Experience in operational and service management within education, employability, or youth services.
- Strong understanding of quality assurance processes and continuous service improvement.
- Proven ability to build and maintain effective partnerships with stakeholders.
- Strong analytical skills with experience in monitoring service performance and impact.
- Excellent organisational and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a team.
Desirable
- Experience working with mentoring or similar youth engagement programmes.
- Understanding of funding requirements and compliance processes.
- Knowledge of recruitment strategies for engaging young people in education, mentoring, and skills programmes.
We recognise the importance of diversity within our teams and are fully committed to embracing and maximising talents. See also our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statement. We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments, where possible, to recruitment, workplaces and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, please contact us.
Working at Sport 4 Life. Here's what our team said...
% of staff are proud to work at Sport 4 Life UK
% said working at Sport 4 Life UK is rewarding
% would recommend working at Sport 4 Life UK to others
% said we have a strong wellbeing programme
Ready to apply?
Thank you for showing an interest in this role with Sport 4 Life UK. To apply, please tell us a little more about you and your skills.
As a business centred around team culture, people are always at the heart of everything we do. We believe in the richness of ideas and power of each other’s differences, and we’re striving to be an organisation packed full of people that are truly representative of the world that we live in. Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is more than a tick box.
We want to hire people, not statistics or stereotypes, who bring fresh ideas to our work and young people. For impartiality, our applications are divided into two sections. Both sections must be completed to successfully apply for this role.
- Part one: Questions about your experience and relevancy to the role – this excludes any personal information and is reviewed by the hiring manager.
- Part two: Contact information and legally required questions – this is reviewed by our HR team for legal reasons and is not disclosed to the hiring manager prior to the interview.