Job Description
Case and Contract Manager
Location: Sheffield/Hybrid working
Salary: £55,242 per year rising to £57,644 per year after successful completion of a 6-month probationary period.
Vacancy Type: Full time, Permanent
Closing date: 17/05/2026
The Role
Are you an experienced legal services or regulatory professional? Are you looking for an opportunity to play a key role in the delivery of essential fitness to practise services?
This is a brand new role at Social Work England, created to strengthen how we work with our external legal provider and how we manage complex fitness to practise cases. As our Case and Contract Manager, you’ll have a real opportunity to shape how this role operates, influence our approach, and make a visible impact from day one.
Working with a high level of autonomy, you’ll oversee our external legal provider contract and provide senior direction on complex cases, working closely with our investigations team and Head of Investigations.
Social Work England is the specialist regulator for social work in England. We focus on protecting the public, supporting positive change in social work, and maintaining confidence in the profession. Every day, social workers help millions of people improve their lives, and our role is to ensure regulation supports safe and effective practice.
About the role
This role brings together contract oversight, performance management, and senior case leadership. You’ll be responsible for ensuring our external legal provider delivers high-quality work, meets performance expectations, and progresses cases efficiently and in line with our regulatory framework.
You’ll provide clear instructions and direction on complex fitness to practise cases, including case planning, investigative actions and support during hearings. Using your regulatory knowledge and judgement, you’ll help ensure decisions are proportionate, well-reasoned and robust.
A key part of the role is monitoring performance. You’ll review data, spot themes and trends, and have confident conversations with senior external stakeholders to challenge delivery, set expectations and drive improvement. As a new role, you’ll also help shape how we approach contract oversight and performance reporting going forward.
What you'll do
As Case and Contract Manager, you will:
* Act as the main point of accountability for our external legal provider, ensuring contractual, performance and financial requirements are met.
* Provide direction and instructions on complex fitness to practise cases, including during hearings.
* Monitor KPIs, service levels and case data, identifying risks, trends and areas for improvement.
* Hold the external legal provider to account through clear challenge, constructive discussion and escalation where needed.
* Work closely with internal teams, including investigations and commercial colleagues, to support effective contract delivery.
* Make sound, independent decisions on complex or high-risk regulatory issues.
* Produce clear, concise reports for senior leaders on performance, risk and contract matters.
* Build strong relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders, influencing outcomes through credibility and expertise.
* Share learning from cases, data and emerging themes to support good practice and continuous improvement.
* Provide advice and guidance to colleagues on case instructions and contract compliance.
About you
At Social Work England, our values guide how we work. We are Fearless, Independent, Ambitious, act with Integrity, and are Collaborative and Transparent. We’re looking for someone who reflects these values in how they work and make decisions.
For this role, you’ll also need:
* Postgraduate-level education or equivalent experience in a legal services, regulatory or statutory environment.
* A strong understanding of regulatory processes, including investigations, hearings and adjudication.
* Experience making or overseeing complex case or regulatory decisions that can withstand challenge.
* Experience overseeing contracts or services, including performance monitoring and KPIs.
* Confidence analysing data, identifying trends and responding to emerging risks or issues.
* The ability to have high-level, sometimes challenging conversations with senior stakeholders.
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including reporting to senior leaders.
* The ability to work independently, manage competing priorities and maintain attention to detail.
You do not need to be a qualified lawyer to apply for this role.
This role may suit you if you’ve worked as a:
Legal Services Manager, Regulatory Case Manager, Fitness to Practise Manager, Hearings Manager, Investigations Manager, Regulatory Operations Manager, Professional Discipline Manager or Regulatory Contracts Manager, Partnerships Manager, Legal Manager, Procurement Manager.
Benefits
In addition to your salary, we offer:
* Hybrid working, with a minimum of two days per week in the office.
* 25 days annual leave, rising to 30 days with service, plus bank holidays.
* The option to buy up to 5 extra days of annual leave each year.
* A TIDE award-winning inclusive culture, with staff networks, forums and social events.
* A pension scheme, life insurance, an employee recognition scheme and a cycle to work scheme.
To Apply
If you feel you are a suitable candidate and would like to work for Social Work England, please click apply to be redirected to our website to complete your application.