Chief Operating Officer (COO

Job Title:
Chief Operating Officer (with CFO responsibilities)

Location: Rugby or Hybrid/ Home with ability to travel to meet the charity’s needs
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Salary: £68,000 - £75,000
Contract Type: Full-time, Permanent
Closing Date: 21st August 2026

HCPT is a UK-based charity that provides life-changing pilgrimage experiences to Lourdes for children and adults with disabilities, complex medical needs, and social challenges of all faiths, and none. Every Easter and Summer, HCPT brings together thousands of volunteers, medical professionals, and chaplains to support pilgrims in a joyful, inclusive, and faith-filled environment. Our work is rooted in Christian values, community, and the belief that every person is uniquely gifted and loved.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a key member of HCPT’s Senior Leadership Team, responsible for the effective delivery and high performance of all operational and business support aspects of the charity’s work. This includes leadership of all business support functions;
Finance, HR, IT and Governance, working with and through internal teams and external business partners.
As such we are looking for an experienced chartered accountant who is also astute in leading the wider business operation of medium sized charity.

The postholder will have oversight of the quality and efficiency aspects of all that we do in planning and execution of pilgrimages, care & safeguarding, compliance and infrastructure and will support the CEO to develop a culture of accountability and high impact, whilst staying true to our values of:
Compassion, Faith, Inclusion, Community and Celebration
.

The COO will ensure that HCPT’s operations are safe, efficient, and aligned with our Catholic ethos and mission of inclusion and care, and that our performance is optimised to deliver excellence, which is: THE BEST pilgrimage experience we can offer as defined and measured by our beneficiaries and volunteers.

This is a senior role in volunteer-led organisation and as such the successful postholder will be required to exercise flexibility with evening and weekend work to meet the business needs of the charity, given the availability of our volunteer leaders who have professional commitments during the day. The role also requires the post holder to travel to and work in Lourdes for two weeks over Easter each year, leading operational delivery of our largest annual pilgrimage.

• Work closely with the CEO to implement HCPT’s strategic plan and vision.
• Lead and line manage internal business support functions and outsourced partners across; finance, HR and IT delivering excellence in our infrastructure.
• Support the CEO to realign the resources of the charity to improve performance, build capacity and increase impact, utilising the best in digital and AI tools to simplify complexity and create capacity.
• Lead on the development and tracking of departmental KPIs and dashboards, developing a culture focused on personal accountability, performance, quality management and continuous improvement.
• Support CEO to develop Operational Risk Register, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans.
• Line manage our Head of Care and Safeguarding, ensuring compliance with policies, procedures, and working as part of the wider care and safeguarding committees to anticipate legislative and other changes to how we deliver our mission in partnership with the CEO and Board of Trustees.
• Support CEO in project management of system migration and development of AI tools which drive efficiency and quality of service delivery.
• Support CEO in quality management and articulation of impact for all stakeholder groups.
• Deputise…