Youth, Skills and Training Manager

Youth, Skills and Training Manager – fixed-term position until March 2026

Closing date: Monday 18 March 9am

Interviews will be held on: Wednesday 27 March

Bradford 2025 is the company created to deliver the Bradford district’s year of culture. A hugely exciting time for the Bradford district, we’re set to deliver more than 1,000 new performances and events. It’s an opportunity for us to bring a new side of Bradford to the world.

To do this we need a team of dedicated, passionate, and enthusiastic people and have a fantastic opportunity for a dynamic Youth, Skills and Training Manager to join our growing team.

Reporting to the Head of Engagement (Skills & Volunteering), you’ll be placing the voice of, and Training opportunities for, young people at the centre of our City of Culture year. You will have strong experience of designing skills, training and engagement programmes with and for young people; and a keen understanding of how to unlock the voice of young people to inform the way that organisations make decisions – enabling them to take power and define, own, make and shout about their culture.

You will be able to balance multiple project strands, with the ability to lead wider practice in youth voice and Training by example, across Bradford and beyond. You will be able to establish rapport with, and build engaging programmes for, young people at the start of their journeys in the creative industries.

If you have strong experience in developing and leading programmes with, for and by young people, in the creative industries or other equivalent fields, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and can be their true selves at Bradford 2025, and we want our team to reflect our district. We believe that diversity in our team is crucial to our success, so we welcome applications from all races, genders, religions, ages, and sexual orientation as well as from people living with disabilities. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and our ambition is to recruit and retain the best people regardless of background.

If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best. This might be as simple as wanting sight of the interview questions ahead of time – whatever it is, just ask and we’ll see what we can do.

Key responsibilities:

· To develop, enhance and oversee Bradford 2025’s approach to youth voice, including through our district wide youth advisory panel

· To lead and oversee the development and delivery of Bradford 2025’s in-house programme of recruitment through apprenticeships and similar work-based training routes

· To lead and oversee a district-wide programme of paid ‘Young Creatives’ training placements, both at Bradford 2025 and embedded with other local partner organisations

· To lead the recruitment of apprentices and other trainees, and to work directly with their line-managers to ensure a consistent, high-quality experience

· To manage recruitment of, liaison with, and programming for the BD25 youth panel

· To develop and lead other relevant projects and partnerships

· To pro-actively remove barriers to access so that we can work with young people that may not traditionally see themselves entering the creative and cultural sector

· To manage the project budgets, and report on these within agreed frameworks

· To develop a robust community of practice for the wider recruitment of apprentices throughout Bradford’s, and West Yorkshire’s, creative industries

· To work closely with relevant colleagues in Bradford’s FE and Skills Sector, and at Bradford Metropolitan District Council (including SkillsHouse; Careers and Technical Education; and Child-Friendly Bradford)

· To work with Engagement and Programme/ Producing teams to ensure join-up and complementarity across the BD25 programme

· To work with the volunteer and community co-producing teams to support different types of engagement in the programme

· To develop strategic partnerships that give reach and longevity to our work – creating long-term shift in practice far beyond 2025, and sustainable progression routes for young people

· To be part of the Safeguarding Team and to ensure appropriate safeguarding systems are in place

· To work closely with our evaluation team to ensure monitoring, evaluation and learning is embedded into the programme

· To collaborate with the Audience team to ensure the programme reaches all communities and neighbourhoods and is communicated effectively

You will have:

Essential:

· Experience in producing training and engagement programmes with, for and by young people, in the creative sector or another relevant field

· Experience and knowledge of creating opportunities for young people to shape projects, programmes and organisational decision-making

· Experience and knowledge of the FE and technical/vocational Skills and Training landscape

· Knowledge of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion in the education, cultural and/or community sectors

· Highly collaborative with excellent people and team management Skills and experience of managing teams of professional creatives

· Adept at working with different art-forms/ cross-art forms with a range of outputs

· Proven ability to collaborate with people from a wide variety of backgrounds

· Experience of monitoring / reporting against specific funding requirements

· Flexible, highly organised, adaptable, solution-focussed with lateral problem-solving skills

· Passionate about removing barriers to engagement

· Proven administrative and event management skills

Desirable:

· An interest in or passion for arts, culture and heritage

· Knowledge of the Bradford District, Yorkshire and UK cultural infrastructure

· Experience of using project management systems

· Knowledge / practice in the social model of disability

· Enthusiasm for training, mentoring and support of emerging talent

· Previously worked as part of a safeguarding teams

Benefits include:

• £32,000 dependent upon previous experience

• 37 hours per week worked flexibly Monday to Friday with occasional evenings and weekends, predominantly office based (City Centre location)

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays

• Contributory pension scheme with 5% employer contribution

• High street discounts through Charity Worker Discounts

• 2x Death in Service cover

• Confidential Employee Assistant Helpline

We expect everyone in our team to:

• Develop an understanding of Bradford City of Culture 2025, its values, the benefits it brings to the Bradford District and to funders and sponsors.

• Create a positive working environment, underpinned by our values.

• Act as an ambassador for Bradford City of Culture 2025.

• Drive change in our industry through actions and words that advocate inclusion and equality, creating a culture that recognises and celebrates diversity and sustainability.

• Be accountable for the safety of themselves and others by working safely and in accordance with our Health & Safety and Safeguarding Policies.

• Ensure we are collecting and using data from all activities to inform decisions, demonstrate our impact and fulfil our funding conditions in line with GDPR.

• Undertake relevant training and development as required.

• Be open to the opportunities to mentor, train and develop colleagues and participants in Bradford 2025.

• Carry out any other tasks that will be required on an ad hoc or continuing basis, commensurate with the general level of responsibility of your position.

To apply for the role please submit a copy of your CV and a covering letter (no more than two sides of A4) to Recruitment@bradford2025.co.uk. Please ensure your CV and covering letter demonstrate clearly how your Skills and experience meet the requirements of the role.

Job Types: Full-time, Fixed term contract
Contract length: 24 months

Salary: £32,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Casual dress
• Company pension
• Store discount
• Work from home

Schedule:

• Day shift
• Holidays
• Monday to Friday

Work Location: In person

Application deadline: 18/03/2024