Head of Water Safety and Education

Head of Water Safety and Education

CONTRACT: Permanent, Full Time (35 hours per week, Monday to Friday)
ORGANISATION:
Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK)
DEPARTMENT: Membership and Education
LOCATION: Hybrid working, with three days a week at RLSS UK Headquarters, Worcester.

* This is negotiable, depending on the travel time of the successful candidate.
REPORTS TO: Director of Membership and Education
REPORTS: Education Manager
SALARY: £43,997.00 (Grade

A)

JOB PURPOSE
To develop, lead, and oversee the delivery of RLSS UK’s Education Strategy, and represent the charity at strategic stakeholder meetings/events.

ROLE OVERVIEW
Early intervention and education is considered critical in the development and resilience of young people to encourage safe experiences. Water plays a vital role in the way we live our lives but it can also result in devastation if not treated with caution. Providing young people with the knowledge and skills to make safe decisions around water is empowering, profound and life-saving.

You will be a passionate and ambitious leader with the skills, knowledge and experience to drive forward this area of work in collaboration with RLSS UK team members across the organisation. You will have a dynamic approach with the ability to combine relationship management, stakeholder engagement, project management and operational oversight to ensure our work in this area aligns with our purpose, mission and vision and enables us to achieve our strategy.

In 2025 the Department for Education (DfE) agreed for the Water Safety Code to be integrated into the newly released Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance for schools in England. RLSS UK were part of a collaboration of various organisations, who campaigned for this important change which is due to be embedded into the curriculum from September 2026.

This role will be pivotal to ensuring that RLSS UK’s voice and expertise is maintained in this educational delivery as well as putting in place robust KPIs to allow us to assess its ongoing impact.

KEY TASKS & RESPONSIBILITIES
Water Safety and Education

• Lead on the development of an ‘Education Strategy’ for RLSS UK that ensures that more young people have access to high quality water safety education

• Represent RLSS UK at wider forums and groups as our water safety and education expert and identify opportunities to increase our impact further

• Work with the Education Manager to develop and deliver education pilots and interventions that are informed by the ‘Education Strategy’

• Work closely with the Policy and Public Affairs Manager to ensure that policy work blends seamlessly and consistently into our educational delivery

• Plan research and evaluation to inform future developments of RLSS UK’s education packages, ensuring that they are impactful and inclusive

• Extend the capability of the community to deliver water safety education, training volunteers, partners, and members to standardise the delivery of our education

• Work with the Education Manager to lead the growth of our education workforce so that RLSS UK is more visible in schools and youth settings across the UK and Ireland

• Work collaboratively with RLSS UK teams to raise awareness of our water safety and education offering and our impact

• Build relationships with those developing similar work in the education space to network and elicit best practices

• Ensure compliance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 by complying with internal information governance policies and maintaining up to date records as part of RLSS UK’s compliance programme

Other Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead on and support ad hoc projects, as required

• Manage, mentor, and support the Education Manager

• Contribute to the successful operation of the charity by undertaking such other tasks as may from time to time be required, including all other duties associated with your role, as directed by your Line Manager

• To always demonstrate and uphold the Society’s values and behavioural standards

• Proactively participate in the Society’s equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives and training,…