Principal Service Lead - Safeguarding and Quality Assurance

Principal Service Lead - Safeguarding and Quality Assurance

Location Cable Plaza, Waterfront West, Brierley Hill, Dudley

Salary £76,597 to £81,370 (pay award pending)

Principal Service Lead – Safeguarding & Quality Assurance (PSW)

Salary: £76,597 - £81,370 (pay award pending)
Location: Dudley, West Midlands – Hybrid
Contract: Permanent, Full Time

Are you an experienced and values-driven leader with a passion for safeguarding, professional standards and continuous improvement?

Dudley are embarking on an exciting journey of improvement. We have strengthened capacity at Associate Director level with four permanent roles AD Education and Inclusion, AD Quality, Performance and Improvement, AD Family Help and Safeguarding and AD Corporate Parenting. We are now recruiting to our Principal Service Lead roles to further strengthen our leadership capacity.

Dudley Council is seeking an exceptional Principal Service Lead – Safeguarding & Quality Assurance to join our Children’s Services Leadership Team. This is a pivotal leadership role responsible for driving practice excellence, strengthening safeguarding arrangements and ensuring high-quality services that improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

• Lead safeguarding, quality assurance and practice improvement
  , acting as the Strategic Principal Social Worker and driving excellence in social work practice across Children’s Services.

• Provide leadership across key safeguarding, quality and workforce development functions
  , ensuring strong governance, professional standards and continuous improvement.

• Drive learning, inspection readiness and performance improvement
  , working with partners and stakeholders to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

We are seeking a visible, credible and ambitious leader with significant experience in Children’s Social Care and a proven track record of delivering service improvement and safeguarding excellence.

Join us and help drive outstanding safeguarding practice, continuous improvement and better outcomes for children and young people across Dudley.

Applications close: 31/8/26

The recruitment process consists of a young person’s panel and final interview. Interview dates will be confirmed following shortlisting. Please indicate any periods you are unavailable.

Please do visit Dudley Councils Children and Young People recruitment site for more information:

- https://

Workplace Attendance:
Working in the office 3+ days a week (pro-rata)
or Onsite full time.

So that we can demonstrate Dudley’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and to improve bias in the recruitment process that could create barriers for candidates. Your personal data will be anonymised when you apply, to ensure that you comply with our anonymisation process, please ensure you have removed your name and date of birth from any attachments prior to uploading them to your application.

Online application forms will only be accepted for this vacancy, online facilities for jobs are available at public libraries within the Dudley Borough.

All applicants must be able to provide documentation to prove their right to work in the UK.

Please note:

Dudley MBC does not currently offer sponsorship for candidates without the Right to Work in the UK.

If you require support completing an online or paper application form and or interview techniques, please contact Dudley Adult and Community Learning on  or  who can support with Digital Skills and Job Applications.

If you have a disability and require assistance in making an application please contact the HR Resourcing Team via