Senior Project Officer; CAF Training and Development Lead). Education & Training

Groundwork South is seeking a motivated and experienced senior project officer to lead on the delivery of our Climate Action Fund project over the next five years.

Contract: Fixed term until June 2031
Hours: Full-Time, 37.5 hours each week
Salary: £28,000 - £32,000 per annum
Location: Home-based (with travel across England). There is a focus on South West England during the pilot phase

Groundwork South works with communities across the south of England to transform their lives and the places where they live. We have been at the forefront of social and environmental regeneration for over 25 years, and today we have a simple mission: to create better places, improve people s prospects, and promote greener living and working.

We are passionate about creating a future where every neighbourhood is vibrant and green, every community is strong and able to shape its own destiny, and no-one is held back by their background or circumstances. This vision drives the work that we do. Each year we deliver over 100 innovative projects, tackling the biggest issues facing our communities and creating real and lasting, positive change.

Communities Prepared works with volunteers and communities across England to help them build the skills, confidence and knowledge needed to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. This includes supporting communities to plan for climate‑related risks such as flooding, storms, heatwaves, and severe weather.

Despite the successes we have had through our programme to date, we are not currently reaching diverse enough audiences and too often there are people missing from the resilience sector. This needs to change. To address this we are now embarking on an exciting new UK‑wide partnership programme funded through the National Lottery Community Fund s Climate Action Fund over the next five years.

The programme responds to growing evidence that climate‑related emergencies, including extreme heat, flooding, fire, cold and severe weather, disproportionately impact marginalised communities, while those same communities are often excluded from resilience planning and decision‑making.

The programme brings together Equally Ours, Communities Prepared (part of Groundwork South), and the VCS Emergencies Partnership (VCSEP, part of the British Red Cross) to strengthen climate resilience by ensuring that communities experiencing discrimination and disadvantage are at the heart of climate preparedness, response, recovery and policy‑making.

Through a rights‑based and co‑produced approach, the programme seeks to shift climate resilience policy and practice away from models that frame communities as vulnerable, and towards approaches grounded in agency, participation, equality and shared responsibility.

• Work with the project team to map stakeholders and co‑develop a structured engagement plan to recruit and work with marginalised communities.
• Build a collaborative and trusting relationship with the partner organisations and other stakeholders for this project, ensuring this work meets their expectations and complements areas of the work programme led by others.
• Work with project participants and partners to co‑design Communities Prepared material and delivery methods that are more accessible and relevant to diverse audiences.
• Lead on the delivery of resilience training and workshop sessions with diverse audiences, both in‑person and online.
• Work with project participants and partners to co‑design a train‑the‑trainer model that will enable diverse audiences to deliver resilience training within their own communities, amplifying reach and impact.
• Work with the core Communities Prepared team to adapt our offer with the long‑term goal of the Programme reaching more diverse audiences, especially those seldom heard in this sector.

The role involves regular travel across the UK, with a focus on South West England during the project s pilot phase.

• Experience in community engagement or community development.
• Experience delivering training or workshops.
• Strong organisational and project management skills.
• Excellent communication and relationship‑building skills, confident to engage people from a range of different backgrounds.
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders or partners.
• Confidence working independently in a remote role.
• An interest in climate change, community resilience and wider community development.
• A willingness to travel across the country.

Groundwork South is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all members of the community.