Governance Officer

Date posted: 15 June 2026

Salary: £41,641 with excellent benefits

Contract type: Permanent, full time

Hours per week: 37.5 hours per week. All staff are required to work in person for a minimum of two days per week, in line with our hybrid working policy. The post-holder may be required to undertake some work outside normal working hours.

About the Health Foundation

Health is our most precious asset. Good health enables us to live happy, fulfilling lives, fuels our prosperity and helps build a stronger society. Yet good health remains out of reach for too many people in the UK, and health and care services are struggling to provide access to timely, high-quality care.

The Health Foundation is an independent charitable organisation with a mission to build a healthier UK. We work to achieve this by generating high quality research and analysis; developing practical solutions to the biggest problems in health and health services; engaging, convening and building coalitions to build understanding, inform debate and drive action; and developing the long-term capability needed to transform health and care.

More about us

Our values

We expect everyone who works with us to be committed to our values and to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation. Our values are impact, evidence, integrity, and collaboration. You can read more about them in our five-year strategy. We also expect everyone to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation and to help deliver our EDI Strategy.

About the role

The Governance Officer will work closely with the Head of Governance to support the effective and efficient functioning of the board of governors, its committees, the Foundation’s subsidiary company, Medtrust, and other aspects of corporate governance. The role sits within the Company Secretary’s team, which is responsible for the Foundation’s governance, compliance, risk and assurance processes.

The post-holder will provide high-quality secretariat and governance support, helping to ensure that agendas, papers, minutes, forward plans, governance records and key meetings are accurate, timely and delivered to agreed standards. They will also support governance meetings and events, maintain governance systems and registers, assist with policy and regulatory compliance processes, contribute to governance learning and effectiveness work, and provide administrative support to the People Forum.

• Deliver high-quality governance and secretariat support for the board and its committees, including agendas, papers, meeting support, minutes and forward planning. This will include providing the secretariat for at least one committee and supporting the Head of Governance with the effective administration of the overall governance structure.
• Plan and coordinate in-person, hybrid and virtual governance meetings and events, including board meetings, committee meetings, governor information sessions, awaydays and board dinners.
• Maintain accurate governance systems, records, trackers and registers, supporting transparency, compliance and effective governance assurance.
• Support the operation of governance frameworks, including policy reviews, delegated authority processes, declarations of interest, hospitality and gifts, governors’ grants, and regulatory filing requirements.

The successful candidate will have experience of supporting senior managers, governors, trustees or committee members; excellent organisational skills; strong written and verbal communication skills, including accurate minute-taking; and confidence using tools such as Microsoft Office, Acrobat and Teams to support governance or administrative work to a high standard.

How to apply

Our priority is to find the right individual for each opportunity. We are dedicated to building an inclusive workplace that values diversity and invite you to find out more.

You can find the job description for this role here. If you would like to apply, please submit your CV and answer the application questions below. Please try to limit your response to each question to no more than 300 words.

• Please tell us why you are interested in working for the Health Foundation and in this Governance Officer role.
• Please briefly describe the experience, skills or knowledge you would bring to supporting effective governance, committee or senior-level meetings, and how would you build positive working relationships with senior stakeholders?
• Please give a brief example of how you have organised information, records, meetings or processes accurately and efficiently in a previous role.
  

Our commitment to equality, inclusion and diversity

We are committed to an inclusive hiring process, where every candidate has the chance to showcase their unique skills and experience in an accessible and supported environment, to ensure that we can make the best appointment for each opportunity on merit. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage those from underrepresented groups in this field to apply to us. We have identified three key areas to improving diversity. Our aim is to achieve a more balanced representation across our organisation, with a particular focus on increasing the number of women in leadership, enhancing the representation of people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds and welcoming more people with disabilities. As part of this commitment, we strongly encourage applications from these groups.

Apply to join our team and let's work towards building a more diverse and inclusive workplace together. If you require any support through this process, please contact [email protected]. Help us work together to make the recruitment process and potential future employment more accessible and enjoyable for you.

Closing date: Sunday 28 June 2026 23:59

Interview / Contact date: TBC