Employability Programmes Manager

Deadline: 23:59pm Tuesday 29th September

The Sutton Trust is the UK’s leading social mobility charity. Our programmes empower young people to access life-changing opportunities, and our research influences national change to deliver a fairer future.

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 3rdsector 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…