Salary: £55,000 per annum + £5,000 car allowance
Hours: 40 hours per week | Regular travel required
Location: Field-based – South UK (broadly covering the Midlands southwards, including Wales and the South of England)
Swanton Care & Community is looking for an experienced Divisional Support Manager to provide senior operational support across our South UK division.
Reporting directly to the South UK Managing Director, this is a highly visible, hands-on role working across the geographical area aligned to the South UK region. You’ll provide additional leadership capacity, assurance and improvement support wherever it is most needed.
You’ll work closely alongside the MD, Divisional Directors and departments, taking ownership of key operational priorities across the division.
The role will include:
- Supporting services requiring additional leadership, improvement or recovery.
- Coaching and developing Registered Managers and operational leaders.
- Using quality, performance and operational data to identify risk and drive improvement.
- Strengthening safeguarding, compliance and operational assurance.
- Supporting new service mobilisation, acquisitions and integration.
- Driving workforce, commercial and operational performance.
- Providing temporary operational leadership where additional management capacity is required.
- Building strong relationships with commissioners, regulators and key stakeholders.
We’re looking for someone with substantial leadership experience within adult social care, ideally across multiple services or locations. You’ll bring strong operational judgement, commercial awareness and the ability to quickly understand challenges, establish priorities and support teams to deliver sustainable improvement.
This is a varied and influential role with significant autonomy and the opportunity to make a real difference across Swanton’s South UK services.
Regular travel across the South UK division (broadly Midland’s southwards, including Wales and the South of England) is an essential part of the role.
What we’re looking for:
This is a senior operational role, and you’ll need to demonstrate:
- Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care, or an equivalent relevant management qualification.
- Substantial management experience within adult social care, ideally supporting people with learning disabilities, autism and/or complex needs and knowledge of PBS.
- Proven multi-site leadership experience, with responsibility for a number of services across different locations.
- Demonstrable experience of managing and developing managers, including Registered Managers and other operational leaders.
- Experience of identifying underperformance and leading service improvement, recovery or turnaround activity.
- Strong knowledge of CQC and/or CIW regulatory requirements, safeguarding, quality assurance and health & safety.
- Experience of using KPIs, audits and performance data to identify risk, challenge performance and drive improvement.
- Good commercial awareness, including experience of budgets, staffing costs, agency usage, occupancy/hours delivery or other operational performance measures.
- Experience of workforce planning, recruitment, retention and building sustainable staffing and management structures.
- The confidence to manage complex operational, safeguarding and people issues, escalating appropriately while maintaining clear accountability.
- Strong coaching and influencing skills, with the ability to challenge constructively and build capability rather than simply taking over.
- Experience of mobilisation, acquisitions, integration or opening new services would be advantageous.
- Excellent organisation and prioritisation skills, with the ability to work autonomously across a large geographical area and respond flexibly when services require additional support.
- A full UK driving licence and willingness to travel regularly across the South UK division (broadly the Midlands southwards, including Wales and the South of England).
Above all, we’re looking for someone who is visible, adaptable and solutions-focused – equally comfortable coaching a manager, analysing performance, supporting a service through a challenging period or leading a defined improvement project.