About the role
This exciting new position within the Leisure Services team will help drive the transformation of the service and shape the future of wellbeing across North Northamptonshire. Bring your hands‑on experience and enthusiasm for leisure services and operations to lead innovative projects transforming existing management models to support the service to modernise facilities, enhance customer experience, and strengthen community impact. Work alongside committed colleagues, partners, and service users who share your passion for creating vibrant, accessible, and inclusive leisure environments. Take the lead in planning, budgeting, and delivering improvement projects that elevate the quality, efficiency, and reach of our leisure offer. Thrive in a forward‑thinking organisation that values your insight, celebrates fresh ideas, and empowers you to make meaningful change.
What will you be doing?
In this dynamic role, you’ll be at the heart of transforming leisure services across North Northamptonshire leading ambitious capital and service‑redesign projects that make a visible and lasting impact. You’ll bring partners together, from leisure operators and community groups to contractors and service specialists, building strong relationships needed to deliver outstanding facilities and experiences. Every project you lead will be underpinned by robust governance and ensure decision‑makers always have clear, accurate information. You will have budget responsibility, champion value for money, and provide confident leadership to deliver great outcomes on time and on brief. You’ll drive continuous improvement, process mapping and options appraisals, while developing compelling funding bids and cultivating relationships with major partners and funders to fuel the next phase of growth. Throughout, you’ll be a clear communicator and trusted advisor sharing insight, highlighting risks, and keeping community partners, senior officers and councillors fully engaged as you help shape the future of leisure and wellbeing across North Northamptonshire.
About you
We’re seeking an enthusiastic, skilled professional with a strong background in leisure, and a real passion for transforming public services. You’ll bring experience in delivering capital, leisure or community projects, securing investment, and working confidently with contractors, leisure operators and community groups. You’ll be a natural project leader able to plan, organise and deliver complex projects to tight timescales, while juggling competing priorities and supporting teams through change. Strong communication, negotiation and partnership‑building skills are essential, along with the ability to work with political awareness in a public‑sector environment. You’ll be adept at managing procurement, budgets, reporting and governance. Above all, you’ll be motivated, adaptable and driven by customer excellence, with a commitment to equal opportunities and the ability to work flexibly across North Northamptonshire when needed.
We offer flexible working arrangements, combining the benefits of home working with collaborative office‑based days to support team connection and project delivery.
Our benefits
Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.
You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!
Why choose us?
We offer a vibrant working environment with:
- a competitive salary
- a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
- lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
- generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
- hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.
We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.
About us
Our Values and Behaviours
Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:
Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy
Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.
Disability Confident Employer
We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.
Our Employment and Disability Service provides bespoke support to individuals facing barriers to employment, helping them work towards their goals to start, stay and succeed in employment. For further information please click here The Employment and Disability Service (EADS) | North Northamptonshire Council
Armed Forces Community
The council obtained the Gold status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS).
Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)
Attached documents
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