Deputy Chief Executive at Durham Students' Union

at  Atkinson HR Consulting Limited

Job Advert
Role: Deputy Chief Executive
Salary: £49,045 to £60,274
Location: Hybrid with an assumption of work from Dunelm House, DH13AN as necessary
Contract: Permanent 35 hours a week full time
Benefits: 30 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 4 closure days over the Winter break, 6% employer pension contribution, 28-hour week over 10 week summer vacation period and non-contributory membership to HSF scheme.
Are you interested in being the Deputy Chief Executive of an ambitious, values-led charity working to ensure students at Durham University have the best possible experience? If so, we’re looking for a leader who believes in the power of education to change people and society, with a strong track record in building alliances, leading people, managing quality outcomes, creating opportunities and making change.
About Durham Students’ Union
Durham Students’ Union is a student-led and student-inspired organisation with hundreds of volunteers and elected student leaders, supported by a team of professional staff. We are driven by the decisions and opinions of students and each year we elect a team of student Sabbatical Officers, who are responsible for supporting and representing students interests in various aspects of campus life.
We are a charity who exist as a separate organisation to Durham University and our charitable governance is overseen by a Board of Trustees made up of both student and external volunteers who contribute their expertise and experience to ensuring we are a well-run organisation.
We’ve committed to a four-year plan focused on bringing students across Durham together, building confidence in the purpose and value of Durham Students’ Union, and tackling the big issues that hold students back. The strategy has emerged from listening to students talk and inviting their input on the challenges they have faced over the last few years, what matters to them, and what they need from their students’ union.
Durham Student’s Union has recently undergone changes to our elected student leadership structure and the make up of our leadership team, making it a very exciting times for the new Deputy Chief Executive to help shape our future for students.
About the role:
The Deputy Chief Executive role is a brand new role created through some of the recent changes to our leadership team. The role holder will work across Durham Students’ Union to advance the students’ union’s mission to be the champion of students at Durham University, leading student-facing services including independent advice, support for student-led sports clubs, societies and interest groups, and democratic services.
Our new Deputy Chief Executive will be responsible for the performance, development and sustainability of the professional staff team and volunteers. They will lead effective and efficient services, and both model and inspire behaviours consistent to our values. This role will also provide advice and make recommendations to student leaders, the Chief Executive and the Trustee Board on policy development within their area of responsibility, support the Chief Executive with policy and strategy development, and create and maintain productive relationships with Durham Students’ Union partners across Durham University, the North East of England, and the voluntary and students’ union sectors.
We’re looking for a good combination of skills and experiences, but we do not expect you to have all of the ones we’ve outlined in the job pack, nor do we expect you to be equally confident or strong in all of them.
Durham Students’ Union expects that all of our volunteers and staff behave in line with our principles that we champion students, we are proud of Durham and we make the future better.

We expect our values and your values to complement each other with ours being:

• We value care and responsibility, because our students matter more to us than anything.
• We value imagination and collectivism, because we’re grounded in our distinctive collegiate community.
• We value ambition and optimism, because we believe Durham students can – and do – change the world.

We offer an inclusive work environment and a very good overall benefits package. We’re a flexible employer and believe passionately in caring for our people. We’re also committed to ensuring that our team reflects the diversity of the world and the student community we serve. We respect everyone’s individual identity and celebrate difference and particularly welcome applications from candidates from Global Majority backgrounds and those who are disabled. We offer a guaranteed interview for candidates who are disabled and who meet all the main criteria.

Please refer the Job description for details