The Brilliant Club

Recruitment Pack
Programme Manager,
The Scholars Programme
June 2026

Registered Limited Company: 07986971

Registered Charity: 1147771 (England and Wales), SC048774 (Scotland)

Registered Office: Fivefields, 8-10 Grosvenor Gardens, London, SW1W 0DH

Programme Manager, The Scholars Programme

Start Date: November 2026

Salary: £39,423 (plus £2,000 London weighting for those living in London and within the M25).

Contract Type: Fixed-term contract until end of August 2027 (maternity cover)

About the role

We are excited to be recruiting a Programme Manager to join The Scholars Programme team. This role will be central in ensuring high-quality programme management and oversee effective stakeholder stewardship across multiple geographical areas.

Programme Managers work closely with each other, reporting to the Head of Programme Management, to ensure excellent programme delivery across the UK. Each Programme Manager will manage a team of Programme Officers, who each manage a cluster of school-PhD tutor relationships. Programme Managers oversee all aspects of programme delivery by Programme Officers, ensuring key performance indicators are met. They will coach and support their team to deal with complex and sensitive issues from schools and PhD Tutors, becoming directly involved as a point of escalation. Programme Managers will be responsible for school retention targets and will identify opportunities to promote The Scholars Programme. They will directly deliver aspects of our provision including PhD tutor training, university events and tutor assessment centres. Programme Managers also lead collaborative work with other teams, providing strategic insight and oversight of joint processes to ensure information is disseminated and key actions are taken by the Programme Management team.

The role requires a driven and dynamic team player, with experience of success in programme management. They will be positive and pro-active in finding solutions, with a commitment to delivering excellent standards. They will champion the charity’s values and embody them in interactions with colleagues and partners.

This role can be based in our London or Leeds offices, or be fully remote, but it will involve some travel to deliver events at our different university partners. Some travel will also be required (mainly to London) for events and to attend in-person meetings.

About you

The role will best suit someone who:

• Has knowledge and experience of the school and university sectors, including the university access agenda

• Has knowledge of educational interventions, including impact management

• Has proven experience in leading the delivery of a project or programme across a locality, is a qualified teacher (QTS or above) or has academic research experience

• Has experience of line management and/or leading and delivering through others

• Has a demonstrable passion for furthering The Brilliant Club’s mission

Essential - adheres to information security policies included in the charities ISO 27001 manual and completes information security training

About The Brilliant Club

What we do

Access to higher education and the life-changing opportunities that come from attending the most competitive universities is not equal. 28 in 100 of the most advantaged students progress to the most competitive universities. In contrast, only 2 in 100 of the least advantaged young people access these universities.

We think this is fundamentally unfair. We work across the UK to support less advantaged students to access the most competitive universities, and to succeed when they get there.

Our programmes support social mobility through a range of approaches:

• Through The Scholars Programme, 15,000 students each year develop the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to access university

• Our pioneering approaches to university transition and student success ensure that less advantaged students are supported to achieve a strong degree

Parent Power empowers parents and carers to become champions for higher education in their communities and address any barriers their children face.

We hope that you’ll consider joining us, as we work to create a fairer society where no child’s education is limited by their background.

Working for us

• Hours: 37.5 hours per week Monday to Friday, flexible working with 10am – 3pm core hours, some evenings and weekends required.

Benefits include: 36 days’ holiday (inclusive of bank holidays) increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 41 days, employer contribution to pension, interest-free season ticket loan, five professional development day allowance, BUPA health cover cash plan.

• We’re happy to talk flexible working. We have offices in Leeds and London.

After your first month in this role, we expect you to be connecting face-to-face with colleagues on at least one day per week. In your first month, we’ll ask you to be in offices a little more regularly than this to make sure you’re getting to know your key colleagues and feeling connected to the organisation.

Our values

The Brilliant Club has three core values that underpin how we work. We look for people who share these values:

• We get to a solution

• We seek and act on the best data available

• We understand that little things go a long way

Diversity at The Brilliant Club

We mobilise the PhD community to support students who are less advantaged to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there. We think it is important that our charity reflects the lived experience of the communities we work with, and we want to be an organisation where employees from any background can thrive. We particularly welcome applications from disabled, Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Non-binary (LGBTQ+) candidates, and candidates from low-income families.

“I am the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Staff Engagement Lead at The Brilliant Club. My role is to help make the charity an inclusive working environment for all of our colleagues. I work with our amazing Staff Networks and colleagues in HR to ensure everyone at the charity has a sense of belonging.”

Emily - Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Staff Engagement Lead

“As the first in my family to go to university and having worked as a teacher in a
state school, I applied to join The Brilliant Club with a real passion for the
charity’s mission. I am grateful every day that I work at a charity that is
supportive of both professional development and flexible working, as well as
being full of kind and passionate colleagues.”
Leanne, Chief Operating Officer

Safeguarding

The Brilliant Club is committed to proactively safeguarding children, beneficiaries and staff and to taking reasonable steps to protect all those who come into contact with the charity from harm. The safety and welfare of everyone affected by the charity’s activities, especially children, is a key governance priority.

As part of our recruitment and selection process and commitment to safeguarding, we will undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check of all individuals in this role. Any offer of employment will be subject to a satisfactory disclosure report.

Responsibilities

The following areas of responsibility are the core of the role. However, the role is flexible and will vary according to the needs of the team, and the experience of the successful applicant.

Programme Delivery

Oversee the delivery of The Scholars Programme by Programme Officers in multiple regional locations and deliver placements yourself as required, ensuring high quality programme delivery resulting in excellent pupil outcomes. This will include regularly monitoring programme outputs to ensure the team are on track to meet key performance indicators, and providing the team with the necessary challenge and support.

Oversee the relationship management of school and PhD Tutors by Programme Officers, including dealing with escalated issues to ensure positive solutions are reached and ensuring the team has strong systems in place to manage high volumes of relationships.

• Lead on ensuring high data return rates from Programme Officer direct reports, regularly evaluating patterns in data from school placements to identify areas of improvement

• Deliver aspects of The Scholars Programme including staffing university trips, training tutors and assessing tutors at interview.

• Support with the ongoing professional development for our PhD Tutors, including supporting course handbook design, quality assurance of tutors and putting suitable interventions and support mechanisms in place.

• Supporting with operational processes used by tutors, schools and the team e.g. approving expenses.

School Partnership Management

• Support and coach Programme Officers to maintain effective relationships with school partners which will include ensuring programme renewal and high Net Promoter Scores.

Lead on securing high renewal rates from Programme Officer direct reports. This will include regular monitoring of school confirmations to ensure the team are on track to meet targets, providing the team with the necessary challenge and support.

Regularly evaluate school partnership data and use programme management information to identify opportunity areas and highest risk renewals, supporting direct reports to create strategic tailored renewals plans.

• Support Programme Officers to resolve conflicts and manage complaints from schools, directly dealing with escalated issues as necessary to ensure positive solutions are reached.

Leadership

• Lead and line manage a small team of Programme Officers, who will be based across multiple office locations, and each manage a cluster of Scholars Programme placements

Support the strategic leadership of Programme Management across The Scholars Programme, identifying areas for improvement and ways in which the Programme Management team can collaborative effectively

Lead on collaboration between the Programme Management team and other teams across the charity that support programme delivery, developing and managing systems and processes to ensure consistency across the UK. This will involve working closely with other teams to ensure information is effectively disseminated and the PM team is trained and prepared to deliver key areas of work.

Wider Support

Across the charity we all pitch in to help different teams and areas of work. This may mean you attend and support with the delivery of other teams’ activities and events. From time to time, you may also work with another team for a fixed period of time, or collaborate on a project to ensure we deliver for the young people we serve. We think this is a good way to gain experiences in different areas of the organisation and enhance your professional skills

Person specification

Time and Resource Management:

• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise and manage time effectively

• Helps others to develop the skills and behaviours to build good time and resource management

• Manages projects and streams of work, with appropriate levels of time and resource input

External Stakeholder Knowledge and Management:

• Knowledge of the school and university sectors, including the university access agenda

• Coaches the team to identify issues and opportunities to better manage external stakeholder relationships

• Confidence in handling enquiries and conflicts from external stakeholders and adapting approach to meet different needs

Communication:

Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Evaluates the quality of communications within their team, suggesting improvements

• Confidence communicating with a range of stakeholders, including at senior levels

• Confidence presenting and delivering sessions to a range of audiences including schoolaged children and adults

• Makes sound, nuanced judgments about how, when and whether to communicate difficult or complex messages

Initiative and Problem-solving:

Encourages a culture of innovation; proactively seeks to enhance processes and identify emerging risks, solving problems and suggesting solutions as they arise. Makes the case for improvements that have a positive impact and effectively shares solutions and improvements within relevant teams

• Works with their team to respond quickly to solve problems, seeking input from relevant internal stakeholders

• Uses and seeks out the best data available to analyse patterns and arrive at robust solutions or improvements

Developing Self and Others:

• Self-reflective and committed to own professional development

• Stretches self, team members and colleagues to develop

What comes next

To apply: Please submit your application by clicking here. As part of your application, you will be asked to submit your CV and complete the answers to some application questions.

Deadline: 9am Monday 20th July 2026

Interviews –

First Round: Wednesday 29th July 2026

Second Round: Thursday 6th August 2026

Interviews will take place virtually on Microsoft Teams.

For more information: Visit our website or email recruitment@thebrilliantclub.org.