Head of Leadership
London Head Quarters with hybrid working
35 hours per week, permanent
Salary range per annum: £79,482-£89,238*
There is more to the RCN than you might think. We’re a trade union with a membership of over half a million nurses, midwives, nursing support workers and students. We support their practice, represent them, lobby on their behalf, and develop them. We exist to make a positive difference – to the working lives of our members and ultimately to standards in patient care. Our employees are drawn from many walks of life – we are nurses, marketers and communicators, administrators, IT professionals, policy and finance experts, lawyers… together we are so much more. We couldn’t do what we do without our people.
We're accredited with Investors in People Silver Standard. Our people are our greatest asset, and we want people who can contribute to our purpose in line with our values.
As a Head of Leadership, you’ll use your positive attitude, your knowledge of nursing leadership, and clinical practice and your ability to deliver the RCN Professional Offer across Institute of Nursing.
It's a job full of possibilities as you could get involved in anything from team leadership, development of leadership careers, policy influencing and innovative and market leading resource development. We'll look to you to lead the development and delivery of leadership team and professional resources. It's a great way to build your knowledge of our work and develop your potential.
As the Head of Leadership for the RCN Institute of Excellence, you’ll use your knowledge, experience, enthusiasm, positive thinking, and leadership skills to support our UK team to deliver the agendas and grow the professional offer.
Every day will be filled with possibilities as you find new ways to manage and support the development of your team. Taking care of our members will be your primary role, but you’ll also see the possibilities that new members can bring. A key part of what you do will be to suggest innovative approaches to grow our membership.
As well as exceptional customer service, to join us you’ll need an in-depth knowledge of nursing leadership, commissioning and policy development across health and social care within the UK. You will also need to be able to lead stakeholder engagement, resource development and delivery of programmes of work and budget management. The ability to foster strong professional relationships and encourage close collaboration between departments, members and stakeholders is at the heart of this leadership role.
To succeed at the Royal College of Nursing all you need to do is think bigger, better and brighter. And with an attitude like that, anything’s possible.
What we offer you
We expect you to look after our members and customers. And we expect you to be rewarded for it. We offer an impressive range of benefits, a broad range of learning development opportunities and an award-winning health and wellbeing programme. We offer annual leave up to 32 days plus bank holidays and three additional days for the Christmas break plus generous maternity, adoption, paternity, and shared parental leave packages.
*We offer a competitive pay structure with annual pay progression until you reach the top of the salary scale. We normally offer new employees the first point of the salary range, although you may be able to negotiate a higher starting salary depending on your skills, experience and current salary.
What we deliver for our members is wide and varied so when it comes to how we work one size doesn’t fit all. We also know that to empower our people to do their best work, they must be able to balance the demands of work and home. We are a diverse organisation and understand everyone has different needs and many of our employees enjoy flexible working enabling them to deliver results whilst having a good work life balance. Departments and directorates have their own hybrid ways of working which put the needs of the service they deliver – whether that’s to members or to colleagues - at their heart, in alignment with our hybrid working core principles. At the RCN it’s unlikely you will work from home for all of your working time. Equally no one is expected to work solely in the office unless your role requires it. You can find out more by having a discussion with the recruiting manager.
Our selection process
Please submit a CV and answer the supporting questions demonstrating how you meet the criteria for this role. You may not be shortlisted if you don’t. Please ensure your CV is in a simple format with minimal tables and sections. Any identifying information in your application will automatically be anonymised for shortlisting purposes.
We want your experience applying for a job with us to be the best it can be. We may hold our interviews and assessments in person or by video call. If you foresee any problems, please let us know.
As a proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities.
Contact details
For more information or for an informal discussion about the role please contact Dr Nichola Ashby Deputy Chief Nurse on may.seyner@rcn.org.uk
For more information about the recruitment and selection process please contact recruit@rcn.org.uk
Opening date: 19 April 2024
Closing date: 12 May 2024
Assessment & interview date: 24 May 2024