Practice Development Officer

Do you want to help shape a skilled, confident and valued adult social care workforce across Sheffield? We are looking for an organised, collaborative and forward-thinking person to turn workforce development priorities into actions that make a difference for people working in and accessing adult care and support.

Adult Care and Wellbeing supports people to live the life they want to live, with a strong focus on prevention, independence, choice and good outcomes. A capable and supported workforce is central to achieving this ambition.

The Workforce Development and Strategy Team works across the Council and with care providers, education and training partners, sector bodies and people with lived experience. Our current priorities include learning and development, workforce recruitment, retention, engagement, communications, equality and inclusion and the continued development of the Sheffield Care Academy.

This is an exciting opportunity to get involved and deliver visible change for the social care workforce. You will lead and coordinate projects from initial scoping through to implementation and evaluation, build productive relationships across a complex partnership landscape, and help ensure that workforce development activity is evidence-led, inclusive and responsive to local and national change for social care.

What you will do

• Lead and deliver projects, managing plans, risks, resources, stakeholders and outcomes from start to finish.
• Help shape and implement workforce development across recruitment, retention, learning and development, engagement and workforce planning.
• Develop learning and development activity in response to identified need, including training programmes, qualifications, practical resources and support for internal services and external care providers.
• Support initiatives that strengthen routes into care and career development including work experience, placements, apprenticeships and the Care Workforce Pathway.
• Build strong relationships with care providers, staff, partners and people with lived experience, using effective engagement and communication to shape delivery.
• Use evidence, workforce intelligence, feedback and evaluation to identify priorities, support delivery and demonstrate impact.
• Contribute to inclusive workforce practice, including equality, diversity and inclusion activity and work to improve the experience and progression of the adult social care workforce.

About you

You will bring a good understanding of adult social care and effective workforce or practice development, together with experience of managing projects and change. You will be able to work independently at pace, communicate complex information clearly and build credibility with a wide range of colleagues and partners.

You will be comfortable moving between strategic priorities and practical delivery, using evidence and feedback to solve problems and improve outcomes. Experience of collaborative working and meaningful engagement will be important.

Our values inform and define our ways of working;

• People are at the heart of what we do
• Openness and honesty are important to us
• Together we get things done

If you share our values and have the knowledge, skills and experience we are looking for then we would love to hear from you.

For an informal discussion please contact John Chamberlain on [email removed]

Benefits

37 hours per week - Monday to Friday

Local Authority Pension Scheme

Training & Continuing Professional Development opportunities.

We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.

It is a great time to join us and we welcome your application.

Under the Guaranteed Interview scheme, applicants who are disabled, care leavers, or armed forces veterans will be guaranteed an interview if they meet the essential criteria and indicate their eligibility on the application form. Sometimes, if lots of people apply, we might not be able to interview everyone who qualifies for the Guarantee. In these cases, we’ll interview the candidates who best meet the essential criteria for the job.

Full-time employees work 37 hours for 52 weeks of the year and we offer a generous holiday entitlement. We are open to discussions about a wide range of flexible working opportunities which benefit you and the Council, including reduced hour contracts, working part time or as a job share.

If you are appointed to this role, your starting salary will be at the bottom of the grade. If you provide payslip evidence that your basic pay is greater than the bottom of the grade, we will consider starting you at the point of minimum advantage within the grade.

Equality of pay is extremely important to us. All roles at Sheffield City Council are going through an evaluation process which may result in changes to some pay arrangements from 2026. Read about the new job evaluation process to be introduced at Sheffield City Council.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all individuals, ensuring a safe and supportive environment for everyone and where appropriate to the role the successful applicant will be required to undertake relevant safeguarding checks.