Job Description
Your Role
Kick It Out, football’s leading equality and inclusion organisation, is seeking a Head of Partnerships and Programmes to lead the strategic growth, development, and impact of our partnerships across football and wider society.
Reporting to the CEO and as a member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will lead KIO’s partnership strategy, building and strengthening high-value relationships with governing bodies, clubs, sponsors, funders, education providers, community organisations, and other strategic partners. You will identify new opportunities for collaboration, income generation, investment, and long-term growth, ensuring partnerships are aligned with KIO’s mission and deliver meaningful impact.
You will play a central role in shaping KIO’s growth plans, developing a strong and diverse partnership portfolio that supports the sustainability and scale of our work. Alongside this, you will provide strategic leadership across our education, talent development, and community programmes, ensuring they are innovative, scalable, commercially sustainable, and capable of delivering measurable, lasting change.
This is a senior, outward-facing role for an exceptional relationship builder and strategic thinker. You will bring together partners around shared ambitions for equality, inclusion, and talent development, creating opportunities that benefit both KIO and the organisations we work with. You will strengthen KIO’s position as a trusted and influential partner across the football ecosystem, from grassroots to the elite game, while extending our reach into wider society.
What You’ll Do
Growth & Partnerships
- Lead KIO’s strategic growth strategy, identifying opportunities to expand our programmes, partnerships, reach, and impact.
- Develop and manage high-impact partnerships across football, education, commercial, community, and public sectors, strengthening our programmes and supporting long-term sustainability.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with County FAs, clubs, governing bodies, sponsors, funders, community organisations, and other key stakeholders.
- Work with partners to co-design and evolve our programmes in response to sector needs, audience insight, funding priorities, and organisational objectives.
- Monitor industry trends and emerging opportunities to inform programme development, partnerships, and innovation.
- Act as a visible external representative and spokesperson for KIO, representing the organisation at conferences, events, panels, roundtables, and stakeholder meetings, while building our profile and influence and working with communications and marketing teams to amplify our programmes, impact, and thought leadership.
Impact & Sustainability
- Lead impact measurement, evaluation, and reporting across KIO’s programmes and strategic partnerships.
- Translate organisational strategy into clear growth roadmaps, measurable outcomes, and evidence-led reporting for stakeholders, partners, and funders.
- Use programme insight, partnership outcomes, and case studies to influence sector-wide conversations and drive systemic change across football.
- Support the long-term sustainability of KIO’s programmes through strategic partnerships, income diversification, and growth planning.
- Identify challenges, risks, and barriers to programme growth and partnership development, and implement practical, solutions-focused approaches to address them.
Leadership & Collaboration
- Lead and support your team, fostering a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing culture.
- Drive a culture of innovation, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement across the organisation.
- Work cross-functionally to ensure programmes, partnerships, campaigns, and organisational priorities are aligned and support KIO’s wider strategic objectives.
- Oversee strategic planning, resource allocation, and budget management across the function.
- Serve as a senior public-facing ambassador for KIO, confidently representing the organisation in media interviews, public forums, sector events, and strategic stakeholder meetings.
What You'll Bring
- Commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion and the aims and values of KIO.
- Proven experience leading strategic growth, partnerships, or programme expansion within sport, education, social impact, or community development sectors.
- Strong track record of building and managing high-value partnerships and stakeholder relationships.
- Experience securing funding, sponsorship, or income-generating opportunities.
- Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with confidence engaging senior leaders, governing bodies, funders, and external partners.
- Strong understanding of programme evaluation, reporting, and impact measurement.
- Strategic thinker with a proactive, commercially aware, and solutions-focused approach.
- Experience managing budgets, strategic projects, and multiple priorities simultaneously.
- Understanding of football and/or sports development environments from grassroots to elite levels.
- Strong public speaking and presentation skills, with experience representing an organisation at conferences, events, panels, or industry forums.
- Experience acting as an organisational spokesperson or senior representative, with confidence engaging media, partners, senior stakeholders, and public audiences.
- Ability to build profile, influence conversations, and establish credibility across diverse stakeholder groups through networking, relationship-building, and thought leadership.
- Experience working alongside communications, marketing, or public affairs functions to enhance organisational visibility and impact.
- Experienced senior leader, with a track record of leading and developing high-performing teams.
Your Benefits
- Remote-First Working: Enjoy the flexibility of working remotely. While we don’t have an office, we organise monthly team Away Days for team-building and collaboration.
- Time Off: Enjoy 25 days of annual leave alongside bank holidays, plus 2 extra days off during the Christmas season and a day off for your birthday. Your leave allowance also increases with years of service.
- Summer Hours: Early Friday finishes during the Summer period.
- Sabbaticals: Extended time off available after a period of long service.
- Flexible Bank Holidays: Flexibility to choose when you take your bank holidays.
- Medical and Wellbeing Benefits: Comprehensive support from day one, including a nutrition and fitness programme, digital GP service, and mental health services.
- Private Healthcare: Option to opt in to private healthcare.
- Income Protection & Life Insurance: Financial protection for you and your loved ones.
- YuLife App: Access to a range of discounts and benefits through the YuLife app.
- Enhanced Parental Leave: Enhanced parental leave to support you and your family.
- Pawternity: Time off to help you care for a new pet.
- Pension: A generous pension contribution to help support your financial future.
Our Equal Opportunities Statement
Our commitment to equal opportunities is central to our mission to make football a game where everyone feels welcome. This commitment is reflected in how we work internally, as well as in the wider impact we aim to have across the game. If you’re hesitant to apply because you don’t meet every single job requirement, please know that we encourage you to apply. We’re interested in what you can bring to the role, not just whether your experience matches every requirement. If you have any access needs or would like to discuss adjustments to the application process, please contact jobs@kickitout.
Application Deadline
The role will be open for three weeks, but we encourage you to apply early to avoid disappointment. As a small team, we may need to close applications early if we receive a high volume of applications. We wish you the best of luck in the application process and look forward to the possibility of welcoming you to our team!
All of our roles are fully remote but require travel for monthly away days, relevant events, and meetings, mainly in London but sometimes elsewhere in the UK. Occasional evening and weekend work may be required.
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