Jobs at Football Beyond Borders (Now Hiring) — 4 open

Reports to: Head of People

Department: People, Culture & Operations

Location: London, West Midlands or Greater Manchester

Hours: Full-time

Salary: £36,053 – £43,114 per annum

Who are we?

Football Beyond Borders (FBB) is an education and youth charity supporting young people who are passionate about football but disengaged at school, helping them feel a sense of belonging, build the skills they need to thrive and successfully transition into adulthood.

Relationships are at the heart of our work. We believe every young person should have a trusted adult alongside them through adolescence, and our practitioners build the consistent relationships that make this possible. Our work increasingly goes beyond the young people we support directly. Through our adult training, we share what we've learned about building trusted relationships with teachers, pastoral staff, coaches and other professionals working with young people. Alongside this, we're building a movement through the Trusted Adult Guarantee, towards a future where every young person has access to a trusted adult who knows them, believes in them and consistently shows up for them.

Our North Star is simple: We Put Young People First.

As FBB grows, we want to become not simply the biggest organisation working with young people, but the best place to do meaningful work with young people. That means attracting exceptional people, developing them brilliantly, setting high standards and building an organisation where people feel connected, challenged, supported and accountable.

That's where this role comes in.

Do you want to...

• Help find and recruit brilliant people who can build life-changing relationships with young people?

• Build HR systems and processes that are simple, human and actually work for managers and staff?

• Become a trusted adviser to managers navigating everything from someone's first day at FBB to complex people challenges?

• Help us build one of the best organisations in the country to work with young people?

If so, we'd love to hear from you.

The role

The Recruitment & HR Manager plays a central role in making FBB an exceptional place to work.

You'll lead recruitment across the organisation, helping us find brilliant practitioners, managers and support staff who believe deeply in our mission and have the skills and character to deliver it. Alongside that, you'll be our lead on day-to-day HR. You'll keep our core people processes excellent, offer trusted advice to managers, support complex employee relations cases and make sure our policies and practices are fair, consistent and legally sound.

But we're not looking for someone who simply administers HR processes. We want someone who asks: How could this be clearer? How could this be simpler? How do we make this feel like FBB?

You'll work closely with our Head of People and Director of People and Culture, alongside managers across the organisation, to turn our People strategy into an excellent everyday experience for staff.

What you'll own

This is a broad role, and no one arrives doing all of it brilliantly on day one. Here's the shape of it, and why each part matters.

Recruitment and talent. This is the heart of the role. You'll own how FBB finds and welcomes brilliant people, from the first advert a candidate reads to the moment they say yes. That means designing clear, inclusive processes with hiring managers, writing communications that sound like us and make people want to apply, building proactive pipelines for the roles we find hardest to fill, and using recruitment data to keep making the experience better and fairer.

Trusted advice for managers. You'll be the person managers come to when something tricky comes up, and the one who helps them handle it early and well. You'll advise confidently across the full range of people issues, from absence and capability to conduct, grievance and performance, support return-to-work and adjustment conversations with real care, and make sure cases are handled fairly and consistently with the right documentation. A big part of the skill here is judgement: knowing when something needs a formal process and when a good conversation is the better answer, and when to bring in external HR or legal advice.

The everyday experience of working here. You'll make the fundamentals brilliant, from the moment someone accepts an offer onwards. You'll own and keep improving the core lifecycle (offers and contracts, pre-employment checks, onboarding, probation, contractual changes, family leave, flexible working and leavers), keep our records, systems and workflows accurate and easy to use, and lead our benefits and financial wellbeing offer, including Mintago, pension and salary sacrifice, alongside payroll and finance. The aim throughout is that our benefits aren't just things we offer on paper, but support people genuinely understand and use.

Helping managers grow. Managers shape so much of how it feels to work at FBB. Working closely with the Head of People, you'll coach and support them through performance, capability, probation and appraisal, help embed clear and consistent expectations, and spot the recurring challenges worth feeding into wider learning and development. Over time, you'll help move us towards earlier, clearer and more developmental conversations about performance.

Policy, compliance and safeguarding. Working with young people means we hold ourselves to a high bar on safe and responsible employment practice. You'll keep our People policies clear, current and aligned with UK employment law, lead strong safer recruitment alongside the Safeguarding Team (including DBS, references and safeguarding checks), keep our processes properly documented and auditable, and translate legal requirements into guidance managers can actually understand and use.

People data and insight. We don't want data that sits in spreadsheets. We want insight that helps us make better decisions. You'll help us understand who we're attracting and appointing, how long recruitment takes, where candidates drop out, and what our retention, absence, probation and employee relations patterns are telling us, and turn that into early warnings and practical action with the rest of the People Team.

What success looks like

After a brilliant year in the role:

• Hiring managers feel genuinely supported to make excellent recruitment decisions, and candidates experience FBB as warm, organised and professional.

• We have stronger pipelines for our hardest-to-recruit roles, and recruitment is getting quicker without compromising quality.

• Managers come to you early rather than waiting for problems to escalate, and employee relations cases are handled confidently, fairly and consistently.

• Our core HR processes are simple, reliable and well understood, and staff make good use of FBB's benefits, pension and financial wellbeing offer, including Mintago.

• People data gives us a clearer picture of organisational health and workforce risks.

• Staff experience HR as human and relational, whilst understanding that FBB has clear standards and expectations, and the Head of People has the operational infrastructure to focus on wider culture, leadership and organisational development.

Working in the People Team

You'll be joining a People function that's trying to do something ambitious. We don't see People as a department that sits on the side of the organisation writing policies. Our job is to help build an organisation capable of doing exceptional work with young people.

You'll work particularly closely with the Head of People, who leads our wider approach to culture, leadership development, staff development, performance and wellbeing. You'll also work closely with the Director of People and Culture, Operations colleagues, regional leaders and managers across FBB. There will be clear areas that you own, and you'll also be expected to contribute to wider People priorities and organisational challenges.

Who we're looking for

You don't need to have worked in a charity or youth organisation before. You do need to care about people, believe in high standards and be excited by the challenge of building an organisation that does exceptional work with young people.

We're particularly interested in someone who:

• Has HR generalist experience, including confidently advising managers and handling employee relations cases.

• Understands UK employment law and can translate it into practical, human advice.

• Has led or significantly contributed to recruitment.

• Can build excellent relationships with managers whilst being prepared to challenge them.

• Communicates difficult or technical information simply and clearly.

• Is highly organised, follows things through, and uses judgement rather than automatically reaching for a policy.

• Can move comfortably between detailed operational work and thinking about how systems could work better.

• Is curious, reflective and keen to keep developing their own practice, and believes high support and high accountability can coexist.

It would be great if you also have a CIPD qualification or equivalent experience, a background in education, youth work or another people-intensive setting, experience with safer recruitment and DBS processes, experience improving HR or recruitment systems, or confidence using data to spot patterns and inform decisions.

You do not need to meet every criterion to apply. If the role excites you and you think your experience could translate well to FBB, we'd encourage you to apply.

Why join FBB?

At FBB, you'll join an organisation with a clear North Star: We Put Young People First.

Relationships matter here, both in our work with young people and in how we work with each other. We want FBB to be a place where people build meaningful relationships, take on new challenges and continue developing their craft. We're serious about development, so you'll have opportunities to learn, receive feedback, reflect on your practice and work alongside colleagues from across FBB.

You'll also have genuine influence. This isn't a role where you inherit a finished HR function and simply keep it running. Plenty works brilliantly, and there's plenty we want to keep improving. Most importantly, your work will support the adults who show up every week for thousands of young people across the country.

Benefits & perks

Alongside your salary, you'll have access to FBB's wider benefits package, including:

• 40 days annual leave: 20 flexible days plus 20 days through organisation-wide shutdown periods.

• Personal wellbeing budget to spend on support that contributes to your wellbeing.

• Learning and development budget to invest in your professional growth.

• Reflective practice and wellbeing support, alongside our Employee Assistance Programme.

• Financial wellbeing support through Mintago, alongside our pension and salary sacrifice offer.

• Access to Premier League, WSL and international football tickets when available.

• Regular team socials, staff gatherings and our annual residential.

• FBB Nike kit and uniform.

• Opportunities for coaching, mentoring and professional development.

Application process

Our recruitment process is designed to give you the chance to understand FBB as much as it allows us to understand you.

Application deadline: Sunday 23 August 2026

• Stage 1: Application. Submit your CV and responses to our application questions.

• Stage 2: Initial conversation. An informal chat to learn more about you, your experience and what you're looking for.

• Stage 3: Assessment and interview. A practical assessment and structured interview focused on the real work of the role.

Full details and dates will be shared with shortlisted candidates.

Safeguarding at FBB

Safeguarding is at the heart of our work. Everyone at FBB has a responsibility to help create a safe, inclusive and supportive environment for young people.

Any appointment will be subject to our safer recruitment requirements, including an Enhanced DBS check, appropriate references and relevant safeguarding checks and training. We expect everyone joining FBB to share our commitment to ensuring young people feel safe, supported and able to thrive.