Sports Leave
Healthy Lifestyle Allowance
Hybrid Working

Leadership & Management Lead

Salary £74,900
Location London / Loughborough / Manchester
Mergefield Title {Mergefield Value}
Mergefield Title {Mergefield Value}

This is a Permanent, Full Time vacancy that will close in {x} days at {xx:xx} BST.

Leadership and Management Lead 

Closing Date: 19/042026

Interview Dates:  06/05/2026 - 08/05/2026         

Who are UK Sport?

We are the UK’s trusted high-performance experts, powering our greatest athletes, teams, sports and events to achieve positive success. Investing a combination of National Lottery and Government funds, we support our Olympic and Paralympic sports to realise their world-leading potential, and we are the government’s lead technical agency for major events in the UK. We work closely with our sporting, national and regional partners to ensure that the UK successfully bids for and stages some of the world’s biggest international sporting events. Our purpose is to lead high-performance sport to enable extraordinary moments that enrich lives.

We are on a mission – to create the greatest decade of extraordinary sporting moments; reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation. That mission is underpinned by three ambitions for UK high-performance sport; to keep winning and win well, to grow a thriving sporting system and to harness those to inspire positive change. Working with the sports and events we fund, DCMS, and our partner organisations across the UK high-performance system, we are building on 25 years of ever-growing success to write the UK’s next chapter for Olympic and Paralympic sport.

About the Role

This is a rare and exciting opportunity to shape the leadership and management capabilities of the UK’s high‑performance system. As Leadership & Management Services Lead, you will design, lead and operationally activate a system‑wide development offer that strengthens the capability of senior leaders — including CEOs, Chairs, Performance Directors and Heads of Performance Services.

Working within our Learning & Development Team, you will build the strategic judgement, critical thinking, people‑leadership and reflective practice required for leaders to create environments where athletes, coaches and performance teams can thrive.

You will lead the evolution of a modern, evidence‑informed development offer that meets the demands of high‑performance contexts and supports leaders across complex, fast‑paced, multi‑stakeholder environments.

What you’ll lead and deliver

Strategic Leadership

  • Shape and lead a system‑wide leadership and management development strategy that is future‑focused and evidence‑informed.
  • Identify emerging leadership trends, risks and opportunities, translating insights into actionable development priorities.

Operational Activation & Delivery Excellence

  • Oversee high‑quality delivery across programmes, networks, communities and leadership interventions.
  • Design, deliver and facilitate role‑specific and interdisciplinary learning experiences.
  • Manage the Leadership & Management Advisor and Leadership Associate Pool.
  • Ensure seamless integration with learning solutions, performance, people and culture teams.

Building Leadership Capability & Communities

  • Embed critical thinking, reflective practice and strategic judgement across the leadership system.
  • Develop partnerships with academic institutions, external experts and high‑performance organisations.
  • Lead the development of leadership communities, knowledge‑exchange opportunities and innovative learning laboratories.

Insight, Evaluation & Continuous Improvement

  • Use data, insight, evaluation and feedback to continuously improve leadership development interventions.
  • Drive evidence‑based decision‑making and ensure impact measures inform future priorities.

About you

You are an experienced senior leadership development professional, confident working in complex, high‑performance or elite environments. You bring:

Essential

  • Significant experience developing senior leaders at executive level.
  • Expertise in leadership and management theory, with awareness of emerging and future trends.
  • Exceptional facilitation, coaching and interpersonal skills.
  • Strong strategic thinking, systems awareness and political acuity.
  • Ability to translate complex concepts into practical, high‑impact learning experiences.
  • Experience mobilising and iterating leadership services to build system capability.
  • Ability to analyse workforce and leadership data to inform priorities.
  • Experience enabling rapid decisions that lead to operational impact.

Desirable

  • Experience leading high‑performance teams or programmes.
  • Experience developing senior leadership teams or boards.
  • Experience designing or implementing positive‑action leadership development initiatives.

UK Sport is the nation’s trusted high-performance experts, powering our greatest athletes, teams, sports, and events to achieve positive success.

Through strategic leadership and investment of National Lottery and Government funds since 1997, UK Sport has transformed the high-performance sporting system, winning more Olympic and Paralympic medals than ever before and is recognised as one of the top nations in the world for event hosting capabilities.

At UK Sport we will utilise the following the tools to support you on your own personal journey to success:

  • Ways of Working Framework – UK Sport’s Ways of Working centres around a central employee engagement plan, where we work and when we work, encouraging mutual trust and respect to create a flexible approach to works with your lifestyle.
  • Access to ‘The Learning Arena’ – Drive your own development through access to our World Class Digital Learning experience used by the UK’s High-Performance Coaches, Athletes and Practitioners. 
  • Enhanced Induction Programme – Ensuring you touch every part of the business and an introduction with our CEO within your first three months.

  • 30 days Annual Leave + all UK Bank Holidays.
  • Holiday Buy & Sell Scheme – Buy extra holiday for that holiday of a lifetime, to spend extra time with your loved ones or sell up to 5 days if that’s a more practical option for you and your lifestyle.
  • Enhanced Family Leave – up to 26 weeks full pay for parents with 12 months’ service or more, and inclusive policies to cover baby loss, fertility treatment and menopause. 
  • Enhanced Sick Leave – up to 6 months at full pay from day one.
  • Sports Leave – up to 4 days off to be a competitor or an official, encouraging you to give back to the sporting community.
  • Compassionate Leave - up to 5 days’ time off to support the loss or serious illness of loved ones. 
  • Emergency Leave – up to 5 days’ full pay to cover life’s unplanned events.
  • Healthy Lifestyle Allowance - up to £50 a month encouraging our employees to pursue sport, hobbies and development opportunities.
  • Pension – UK Sport matches 10% of your annual salary into your pension to help you save for the future.
  • Employee Support – We know it’s sometimes helpful to talk to someone impartial. UK Sport provides all employees with access to confidential assistance and therapy through fully trained counsellors on any personal and financial matters they may face.
  • Travelling to Work – Whether you choose to take the train or cycle to one of our offices, UK Sport can support a season ticket loan or purchasing a bike through the Cycle to Work scheme.

With all our office-based roles available across any of our Manchester, Loughborough or London offices, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace culture where difference is embraced, and exceptional talents can flourish. We strongly encourage applicants from all backgrounds and walks of life, and we’re interested to hear from people that may require flexible working patterns or may want to work less than a full-time contract. 

As we strive to ensure our workforce is more reflective of UK society, we particularly welcome applications from people with ethnically diverse backgrounds or with a disability or long term health condition as these groups are currently underrepresented at UK Sport.

We guarantee interviews to applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role if:

  • They have a physical or mental impairment that has a “substantial” and “long-term” negative effect on their ability to do normal daily activities, or
  • Who do not identify as White British/English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish

To qualify, you need to demonstrate in your application that you meet the minimum criteria for the role and belong to one of the above groups. If you have a disability, please contact us to discuss any adjustments you may need at interview or in the role, if successful.

It is important to note that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the minimum job criteria. For example, in certain recruitment situations, such as an extremely high number of applications that have opted into the scheme and high-peak times, we may have to limit the overall number of interviews offered to all candidates.

UK SPORT IS PROUD TO BE AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES EMPLOYER. At UK Sport we are determined to lead by example, striving to be a role model organisation in all we do in equality, diversity and inclusion, from leadership to delivery.

Pride & Passion

Commitment to excellence

Integrity and openness

Working together

We have three modern and accessible offices available to all UK Sport Staff:

London 6th Floor, 10 South Colonnade, London, E14 4PU

Loughborough Pavilion 3 Level 2 Sport Park, 3 Oakwood Drive, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3QF

Manchester - 299 Alan Turing Way, Manchester, M11 3BS

10% Pension Employer contribution

30 days' annual leave

Hybrid Working

Retail discounts

and more!

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