Senior Programme Manager

Senior Programme Manager

Full time (35 hours per week, Monday to Friday) Salary: £45,138.97 to £ 47,719.05 (dependent upon skills and experience) Based at Church House, Leeds (with hybrid working)

About the Job

The Diocese of Leeds is seeking to appoint a Senior Programme Manager to lead, shape, and deliver a new generation of transformational programmes at a pivotal moment in our journey.

Our vision is to see Confident Christians, Growing Churches, and Transforming Communities. As we move into the next phase of Barnabas: Encouraging Confidence, programme leadership will be central to enabling diocesan-wide change. This role will oversee the development, launch, and implementation of major strategic programmes that strengthen mission, revitalisation, lay leadership, and ministry with children and young people and ‘Transforming the City of Leeds’.

This is an exciting opportunity for a collaborative, strategic, and highly organised leader who can bring people together, manage complexity, and turn vision into reality.

Key Responsibilities Lead the creation and development of new diocesan programmes

Work with bishops, senior leaders, clergy, and lay colleagues to design programmes that deliver core Barnabas strategic aims. Ensure effective teams—paid staff and volunteers—are recruited, supported and aligned to programme goals. Oversee programme scope, timelines and budget, escalating risks or delays through appropriate governance structures. Build learning communities and shape training that supports transformation across the diocese. Provide clear written and verbal reporting to governance bodies, ensuring transparency and shared understanding. Create, monitor and manage programme budgets, including forecasting, financial reviews and spend analysis. Shape the design of future programmes

Support the writing, planning and submission of Diocesan Investment Programme (DIP) applications. Contribute to future funding rounds through insight gained from programme monitoring and learning. Ensure that all programmes contribute meaningfully to Barnabas outcomes and long-term diocesan change. Capture and share learning to drive programme adaptation, innovation and continuous improvement. Support buildings and sustainability work

Assist the development of building improvement plans within new and existing programmes, ensuring affordability, feasibility, and alignment with mission goals. Support new initiatives in achieving long-term financial sustainability, including exploring additional revenue sources and grant funding. Contribute to sustainability planning across buildings and wider strategic projects. Communication, Monitoring and Evaluation

Analyse programme impact and make clear connections to wider diocesan missional and financial sustainability. Support communications through storytelling, case studies, and sharing good practice across the diocese and with the national church. Facilitate evaluation processes, including end of programme reviews with the national church and other stakeholders. About You

You will be a confident programme leader with a passion for enabling change and collaboration. You’ll bring experience in strategic programme management, preferably in complex, multi-stakeholder environments. You will be skilled at balancing vision with detail, and able to work constructively with senior leaders, clergy, lay teams and external partners.

You will bring:

Strong programme and project management expertise Excellent relationship-building and communication skills across diverse groups Experience managing budgets and financial planning The ability to analyse data, evaluate impact, and drive learning Most of all, you’ll be energised by the opportunity to help shape diocesan-wide transformation.

Why Join Us? The Diocese of Leeds serves a vibrant and diverse region, encompassing near 580 churches and 240 schools across urban centres and rural communities. You’ll be supported by a skilled communications team and work closely with senior leaders to make a lasting difference in the life of the Church and its communities.

We look forward to discovering how your experience and gifts can help us advance our shared vision of confident Christians, transforming lives throughout Yorkshire and the Dales.

We’re committed to fair and inclusive recruitment. That’s why all our vacancies are shortlisted anonymously, removing personal details from applications to ensure every candidate is assessed purely on their skills and experience.

The package includes a competitive salary, flexi-time scheme, an 8% non-contributory pension with an additional 5% matched contributions, hybrid working (50%), Cycle to work scheme, EV salary sacrifice scheme and 30 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays and four customary days a year (between Christmas and New Year).

Closing date: 28 April 2026

Interview date: 21 May 2026

For an informal conversation about this role please contact Ben Walker (Strategic Portfolio Manager) ben.walker@leeds.anglican.org

Our Values The Diocesan Values, Loving, Living, Learning, Are Vital To The Way We Encourage Equality, Diversity And Inclusion In Our Workplace. We Aim To

Love God, the world and one another. Live in the world as it is, but, drawn by a vision of something better, we want to help individuals and communities flourish, Learn when we get things wrong, by listening and growing together. The Diocese of Leeds is proud to be a Living Wage Employer.

Leeds Diocesan Board of Finance (The Board) is committed to providing equal opportunities in employment and the workplace and in avoiding unlawful discrimination. Accordingly, the Board will ensure that recruitment and selection, training and development, and promotion procedures result in no job applicant or employee receiving less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, class or caste, religious belief or lack of religious belief (unless this is an occupational requirement), disability, trade union membership or non-membership, gender or sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, responsibility for dependents or being a part-time or fixed-term worker. The Board’s objective is to ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and otherwise treated solely on the basis of their relevant aptitudes, skills and abilities.

The Diocese of Leeds is currently unable to sponsor candidates without Right to Work in the UK. Candidates must have Right to Work in the UK to take up this role.

To Download a Copy Of Our Policy For The Recruitment Of Ex-offenders From The Diocesan Website, Please Click On The Below Link

https://www.leeds.anglican.org/vacancies