Vacancy description
Key Information
- Division:Grassroots Football
- Location:Wembley Stadium
- Vacancy Type:Full-time, Permanent
- Closing Date:6 April 2025
Join The FA as a Senior Development Manager (Networks and Programmes)
Are you passionate about football and its growth at the grassroots level? The Football Association (FA) is looking for an experienced Senior Development Manager (Networks and Programmes) to play a key role in shaping the future of grassroots football across the country.
In this exciting role, you'll oversee the development of County FA (CFA) networks, ensuring they have the resources and expertise to drive success in club and facility development. You'll work closely with stakeholders and partners to equip these networks with the skills necessary to thrive and deliver consistent, high-quality results.
You'll oversee projects like improving the quality of grass pitches and the development of technical standards, while working with commercial partners to develop and deliver programmes to support football clubs at every level.
You'll also foster strong relationships with commercial partners, senior stakeholders, and organisations like the Football Foundation, ensuring programme delivery meets established goals and objectives. With your leadership, strategic thinking, and collaborative approach, you'll create a high-performing, sustainable network that positively impacts grassroots football.
If you have senior-level experience in facilities development, sports programmes, and leading networks, this is your opportunity to help shape the future of grassroots football, all while working for one of the most iconic organisations in sports.
What will you be doing?
Management and Partnerships:
- Manage a team of National Development Managers to deliver on network development and programme delivery initiatives.
- Foster strong teamwork and collaboration across the clubs and facilities team, the wider FA, the Football Foundation, and CFA networks.
- Maintain strong relationships with senior stakeholders and key system partners, such as the Football Foundation and County FA's.
- Oversee relationships with commercial partners involved in programme delivery.
- Manage the FA Facilities Expert Advisory Committee, ensuring effective delivery against its terms of reference.
Network Development:
- Oversee the creation and execution of a workforce development programme that equips County FA networks with the skills and resources necessary for success in club and facility development work.
- Drive clear leadership of the club and facilities CFA network to ensure a consistent and high-quality approach to delivery.
- Support the identification and resolution of performance issues within the network.
Programme Delivery:
- Develop, lead, and manage a range of programmes to benefit grassroots football clubs, working collaboratively with commercial partners and key stakeholders.
- Oversee the successful delivery of programmes like 'A Greener Game' and ‘Howden's Gamechanger Programme'.
- Ensure that programmes are efficiently set up and delivered against established goals and objectives.
Operational Oversight – Grassroots Facilities:
- Oversee the FA's interests in delivering strategic goals such as grass pitch improvement, amongst other goals within the context of the FA's grassroots strategy, including oversight of the FA 3G Pitch Register.
- Oversee the FA's interests in developing guidance and technical standards for grassroots facilities.
Other:
- To manage and oversee all budgets relating to facilities, networks and programmes.
- Executes additional tasks as required to meet the FA's changing priorities.
- Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
- As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
What are we looking for?
Essential for the role:
Knowledge:
- Extensive knowledge of football facilities development, including 3G pitches, grass pitch improvement and off-pitch facilities
- Strong knowledge of sports development, including club development
- Extensive knowledge of County FA's and Football Foundation networks
- Strong technical and operational knowledge of football facilities
- Strong knowledge of equality, diversity and inclusion
- Educated to Degree level or equivalent
Experience:
- Senior-level experience in facilities development
- Senior-level experience in sports development
- Senior-level experience in leading networks in a collaborative manner to ensure that they are high-performing
- Senior-level experience in multi-stakeholder environments
- Experience in leading a high-performing team and providing effective programme oversight
- Strong experience in developing strategies from inception, through to delivery, including the development of implementation plans and progress tracking
- Experience in creating or managing workforce development programmes
Technical Skills:
- Strong collaboration skills and ability to influence across an organisation.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Strong data analysis, visualisation and reporting skills.
- Strategic programme delivery skills, with experience in scoping, delivering and embedding projects and programmes within organisations.
- Advanced ability to create presentations and present to a wide range of key stakeholders
- Strong budget management skills
- Advanced Microsoft Office skills, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint proficiency.
Beneficial to have:
Knowledge:
- Good understanding of the FA's 3G pitch register
- Good knowledge of technical and safety standards for facilities, such as goalposts, pitch sizes etc.
- Good understanding of grass pitch performance standards
- Good knowledge of stadia accreditation
- Project management qualification (e.g. Prince2)
Experience:
- Senior-level experience in developing funding programmes or grant management
- Managing large and complex budgets
- Senior-level experience in client engagement on strategic projects or programmes.
- Experience in managing very senior internal and external stakeholders.
Technical Skills:
- Programme design and development
- Working with commercial partners and stakeholders
What's in it for you?
We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.
We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:
- Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
- Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
- Free private medical cover.
- A contributory pension scheme.
- An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
- A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.
For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
ABOUT US
The Football Association [The FA] is the not-for-profit governing body of football in England. It is responsible for promoting and developing every level of the game, from grassroots through to the professional game, and generates significant revenue to support investment into English football each year.
The FA oversees England international teams across men’s, women’s, youth and disability football, as well as running the National League System and FA Competitions including the Emirates FA Cup, and Women’s Adobe FA Cup, and the world-class facilities of Wembley Stadium and St. George’s Park, all with a purpose to inspire positive change through football.
Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally. It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most. With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
Now is the time to inspire positive change.
We currently work within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary.
Your contract with The FA will specify a fixed location of Wembley Stadium or St. George’s Park unless the role is advertised as a homebased contract. The contractual location of this role can be found at the top of this advert on our FA vacancy page.
THE PROCESS
We believe that assessment and selection should be robust, fair, and inclusive.
Following receipt of your application and the closing of the application process, you can expect a period of circa two weeks for us to thoroughly screen and shortlist, ahead of any next stage and interview.
Please note, we receive a high volume of applications so this can vary but we ensure that our assessor panel reviews all applications, and no use of automated screening or AI is used.
At an interview, we want to ensure that we see the best of you as an individual and increase our understanding of your skills and experience relevant to the demands of the role. It is very much a two-way process with importance placed on the candidate experience so that regardless of outcome, you feel valued, and treated fairly and hopefully have a positive experience.
No process is ever the same, but we would like to create an environment that is welcoming and ensures the experience is as enjoyable as possible.
We tailor our assessment and selection depending on the nature and demands of the role. The FA Resourcing Team will provide you with as much notice as possible about the process and the format of any interview will always be communicated to you in advance, including what to expect on the day and who you will be seeing.
We often receive a high volume of applications, and for certain roles, we will supplement your application, utilising our on-demand video interviewing platform. On-demand video interviews enable you to answer preset questions, in the comfort of your own home or office setting and at a convenient time for you, giving us greater insight into you as an individual and the skills and experience you might bring to the role and working at The FA.
We also utilise Microsoft Teams for virtual interviews and of course host you at our world class venues, Wembley Stadium and our National Football Centre, St. George’s Park.
GROUP STRATEGY
WE HAVE MOVED FOOTBALL FORWARD.
From 2020 - 2024, we have – in collaboration with our key partners – been able to deliver meaningful change across the game.
From winning our first major tournament in over 50 years to delivering thousands of high-quality pitches to the grassroots game.
BUT WE CAN’T STOP NOW - AND WE WON’T.
This new strategy is about doubling down. Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally.
It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most.
With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
NOW IS THE TIME TO INSPIRE POSITIVE CHANGE.
Our ultimate purpose is to ‘Inspire positive change through football’ – everything we do ultimately ladders up to this end goal.
The 2024-2028 strategy focuses on tackling four long-term strategic challenges that will fulfil this purpose and drive real change across the game, our ‘Game Changer’ objectives.
Underpinning these Game Changers are then four activities and approaches that will enable us to meet challenges head on, our ‘Drivers’.
EDI STRATEGY
Our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy forms an integral part of our long-term commitment to using our influence across English football to create a game free from discrimination.
A GAME FREE FROM DISCRIMINATION
Our 2024 – 2028 strategy outlines three fundamental pillars for delivering a game free from discrimination – Boosting Representation, Driving Inclusion and Tackling Discrimination.
These pillars ensure that our work uniting communities, improving lives, and inspiring positive change on and off the pitch will remain a core priority for English football for years to come.
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The FA actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of The FA’s commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
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