Operational Manager

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an Operational Manager working 35 hours per week to join a professional, high-performing team within an established, innovative and passionate charity.

NYAS are the leading children’s rights advocacy charity within the UK providing advocacy and services to children, young people and families.

Are you an experienced and committed strategic leader wanting to make a difference to the lives of children, young people and families in Wales? If so, we would love you to join our team.

You will have the overall responsibility for strategic leadership and management of all our grant programmes in Wales which supports care experienced young women who are pregnant/have children, our parent advocacy services, youth participation work and the development of all other innovative grant schemes.

You will have a key role to collaborate in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders and partners to influence systemic change for children, young people and the families we support. You will take the lead on work with our campaigns and policy team to make change happen in partnership with others.

You will be an effective strategic leader who is experienced in identify and delivering innovative projects and you will be able to support a team of staff and ensure the delivery of exceptional services in accordance with our contracts.

You will be confident in managing budgets and ensure financial targets are met whilst identifying opportunities to grow income through the development of new and existing services.

Finally, you will be able to evidence the outcomes and impact on our work via data collection, presentations internally and externally.

For more information, please view the attached job description. If you would like to have an information discussion on the position, please contact Sharon Lovell, CEO for NYAS Cymru on 07747 461017.

In your application, you will need to evidence, using specific examples, how your skills and experience meet the criteria laid out in the person specification, within the job description attached. Requirements include:

• Considerable provide experience of managing and developing viable and effective services in a similar field.
• Have experience of business development and are able to identify funding streams to support our charitable strategic plan.
• Considerable experience of the supervision and management of staff.
• Experience of managing budgets and effective cost control.
• Experience and understanding of child protection/vulnerable adult safeguarding procedures.

NYAS operates robust safe procedures to ensure the protection of the children, young people and adults at risk we work with. To comply with NYAS’s Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check, references and a Digital Risk Assessment.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early once we receive a high number of applications.

Interview Date– 16th January 2026.

About NYAS

As an established leading rights-based charity, NYAS (National Youth Advocacy Service) is well positioned to ensure that children, young people, and adults across England and Wales are fully respected, represented, and supported in expressing their views and having their rights upheld.

We work with care-experienced children, young people, and adults who are often reliant on statutory services suffering the negative impact of the cuts in public expenditure. Our combination of social care and legal services places us in a unique position to ensure that they receive the services they need and that their voices are heard.

We are an equal opportunities employer and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment which means NYAS welcomes applications from all individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, or any other protected characteristic.

 NYAS is proud to share that we are a Disability Confident Employer and we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for our vacancies.

Work with us to help change young lives.