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. We are looking for a dynamic and enthusiastic Employability Programmes Manager to join our team through this exciting period.

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 Sep 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. They will join a small and passionate team, led by the Head of Employability Programmes, and will play an important role in contributing to the on-going success of our programme work and industry engagement strategy.

This role is responsible for 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.

Programmes design and delivery

• Design 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. The role will work closely with the Senior Employability Manager and other colleagues across the team responsible for employer engagement, evaluation and marketing to ensure successful launch.

• Deliver 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.

• Plan, project manage and deliver 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 etc. Some activities will also be in-person at employer partners.

• Liaise with colleagues in the Employer Engagement team to plan and delivery work experience placements, insight days and employer volunteering across programmes.

• Design engagement and comms plans for programmes to ensure strong student engagement and retention

• Work with colleagues to build and manage relationships with industry partners from across a range of sectors, who fund and support delivery across the programmes

• Manage partnerships with external delivery organisations (including universities and 3rd sector facilitators) to ensure the sessions and content of the programmes meet its intended aims

• Ensure all events and activities are risk assessed and delivered in line with both health and safety and safeguarding policies and best practice

• Liaise 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.

• Lead programme transition and change, balancing the delivery of existing programmes with the development and implementation of new initiatives

• Manage programme budgets and reporting process

Team responsibilities

• Line manage a Programme Assistant who supports across programmes

• Working with the Development team, manage the evaluation and reporting of programme activities including reporting/presenting to funders

• Other duties as necessary from time to time

Organisational responsibilities:

GDPR

• Being conscious of how the GDPR relate to your area of work

• Monitoring and raising issues or potential issues as they arise

Safeguarding

• Being aware of and actively working to include safeguarding within all aspects of work

• Raising issues or potential issues as they arise

Fundraising

• Acting as a representative and ambassador of the Sutton Trust when interacting with external contacts and particularly (prospective) donors

• Engage with fundraising and/or donor-related activities if required (e.g., contributing to funding proposals, reports or donor meetings)

Health & Safety and office

• Familiarising yourself with the Trust’s Employee Safety Handbook, and your individual H&S duties and responsibilities.

• Reporting any H&S concerns or issues as they arise, either at home or in the office, as appropriate.

• Being aware of trigger points and informing the Ops team as needed e.g. when moving address or adjusting home workstation setup.

• Ensuring line reports are completing all H&S training.

• Regularly checking in with line reports on any H&S 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

• Line managing, motivating and proactively supporting Programmes Assistant: Employability in their professional development

• Following the Trust’s HR policies relating to line management and engaging with relevant processes as necessary

• 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