Organisation Swim England Salary £60,000 - £70,000 Location SportPark, Loughborough Contract type Closing date 2 December 2025 Interview date 12 December 2025 Job Description About Us
Swim England is the recognised national governing body for swimming, artistic swimming, diving and water polo in England. We help people learn how to swim, enjoy the water safely, and maximise their potential in aquatic sport at every level — from community participation to world-class performance.
We work with clubs, coaches, teachers and volunteers across the country to create safe, inclusive and inspiring aquatic environments. As a membership organisation and charity, we are committed to supporting the growth of our sports, promoting physical and mental wellbeing, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to enjoy a lifelong love of the water.
About the Role
We’re looking for an experienced and values-led safeguarding professional to join us as Head of Safe Aquatics. You will lead Swim England’s Safe Aquatics function, ensuring we provide an effective, person-centred and high-quality safeguarding environment across all our activities.
You’ll play a pivotal role in developing sector-leading safeguarding practice, overseeing case management, policies and procedures, and driving continuous improvement. Working collaboratively across Swim England and with our club network, you’ll strengthen safeguarding culture and build confidence and trust in how we keep people safe in aquatics.
This is an opportunity to make a real difference — supporting safer participation and helping shape the future of safeguarding within sport.
Key Responsibilities
In this role, you will:
- Provide outstanding leadership, guidance and support to the Safe Aquatics team, the Swim England Board, Executive and wider internal teams.
- Deliver effective performance management to continuously improve the operational delivery of safeguarding.
- Ensure safeguarding practice evolves in line with national standards, statutory guidance and best practice.
- Oversee the review and update of Swim England’s policies, processes, training and guidance.
- Engage with all levels of the organisation (Regions, Counties and Clubs) to build trust and positively influence safeguarding culture.
- Adopt a person-centred, values-driven approach using preventative strategies to improve outcomes.
- Lead high-harm, complex or reputationally significant safeguarding cases.
- Deliver a robust quality assurance framework, using internal and external measures to identify and act on improvement opportunities.
- Apply data and insight to inform preventative safeguarding solutions.
- Implement actions from organisational plans and reviews to support delivery of Swim England’s strategy.
Skills and Experience
Essential
- Values-led, aligned with Swim England’s organisational values.
- Significant senior-level safeguarding experience within a high-risk, high-volume environment (e.g. police, social care).
- Extensive knowledge of safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance for children and adults.
- Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills, with the ability to coach and influence at all levels.
- Proven track record of collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, including parents, coaches, committees and partner organisations.
- Experience leading teams that deal with confidential and sensitive matters.
- Acts as a positive role model for both the team and the organisation.
Desirable
- Experience working within a sporting environment.
If you feel you have the suitable skills and attributes for this position then we would love to read your application, detailing how you meet the brief, and how you believe you’re the right candidate for this opportunity.
Please be advised that we cannot offer visa sponsorship and that you must have right to work in the UK to apply or be considered for this role. If you are a non UK/EU National, you must have an appropriate working Visa to undertake employment. You must also be working within the UK to apply or be considered for this role, due to the public liability insurance Swim England holds.
Swim England is committed to inclusion and embracing the spirit of all equalities legislation. As a Disability Confident Employer, we actively encourage applications from disabled people. We recognise that the diversity of our workforce is not reflective of today’s society and we are currently operating a pilot scheme whereby applicants from ethnically diverse backgrounds can opt into our guaranteed interview scheme. Candidates that have opted into the scheme will be guaranteed an interview provided that they have demonstrated, within their application, that they meet the essential criteria for the role. When emailing the CV and cover letter, applicants from ethnically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to state they wish to ‘Opt In’ to the scheme.
Where possible, Swim England will always make reasonable adjustments for accessibility to anyone who requires it. If you would like any of the documentation in a different format or would like to apply in a different way please get in touch via. All appointments will be made on merit, following a fair and transparent process, in line with the Equality Act 2010. However, the organisation may employ positive action where candidates from underrepresented groups can demonstrate their ability to perform the role equally well.
Swim England is also committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.
This job is SportPark based (minimum of 2 days in the office).
To apply email with your CV and cover letter to: