Description
Contract: Permanent, full time (37.5 hours per week)
Salary: £25,787 to £27,047 per annum
Location: Southampton SO30 2HL
Closing date: Sunday 18th January 2026
Interview date: Monday 26th January 2026
We're recruiting an Assistant Manager – Offsite Services to lead and streamline our home-based pet operations.
In this role you'll ensure that every pet finds the perfect match with their new family as quickly as possible, while maintaining top-quality care for both our pets and clients throughout the entire adoption journey. Join us in making a difference, one pet at a time!
More about the role
Our beautiful centre opened in 1988 and occupies approximately three acres of land in a discrete location surrounded by fields where we can walk our dogs, providing some wonderful enrichment in a quiet environment. The centre has facilities to care for dogs and cats, as well as a specialised area for kittens.
In this role, you’ll play a key part in ensuring exceptional care for both pets and clients while identifying efficiencies and making decisions that prioritise offsite pet welfare. As the leader of our home-based pet operations, you’ll oversee the smooth running of our foster and home direct services, placing pets directly from one home to another, with experience in practical animal handling and assessment. Your goal will be to prepare pets for adoption as quickly and effectively as possible. You’ll work closely with your team to ensure timely pet assessments, behaviour management, and training, while providing full support to foster carers and current owners.
You’ll also be responsible for achieving pet-related targets, ensuring your team of Pet Welfare Assistants and Foster Coordinators maintain the highest standards of animal care and adheres to national processes in case management. Teamwork is essential to address the most urgent cases effectively.
Motivating and managing your team is central to this role, enabling the centre to provide top-quality home-based pet care while helping your team develop professionally.
This is a full-time position, working 37.5 hours per week and you will be required to work 1 in 3 weekends.
About you
You’ll be a great people manager, bringing finely honed skills from your experience in an animal-related environment, along with extensive knowledge of pet welfare and care.
As a dynamic and innovative leader, you know how to inspire and motivate your team, driving continuous improvement, empowering them through effective management and coaching.
With excellent communication skills, you adapt your approach for different audiences, ensuring your message resonates. While juggling multiple tasks, you remain calm and organised, making confident decisions in high-pressure situations.
Your strong analytical skills enable you to monitor and evaluate effectively, implementing meaningful improvements. Rather than resting on your laurels, you’ll have a genuine desire to enhance offsite pet care services, actively engaging your team in the process.
Having worked in emotionally charged environments, you understand the importance of resilience. Your emotional intelligence and empathy will shine as you support your team and the public, creating a compassionate and effective workplace.
Knowledge, skills, and experience
* Significant experience in managing a team.
* Significant experience in delivering high level Customer service in a fast-paced environment.
* Expertise and application of pet welfare and handling of domestic animals
* High standard of verbal and written communication.
* Current full driving license
* The ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross values
It would be great (but not essential) if you also had:
* Performance management and improvement experience.
* Experience working with volunteers.
* Understanding of safeguarding issues.
Want to know more detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.
How to apply
Click the apply button below and complete the online application process before the closing date on Sunday 18th January.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.
Blue Cross benefits
Our people are the most important part of delivering our purpose. If it were not for their amazing efforts and commitment, we would not be able to make the difference that we do today.
In return, Blue Cross wants to ensure we provide you with the best working environment we can. We want you to be happy working for us and will do everything we can to make sure you are.
Our generous benefits package includes:
* Full time equivalent of 38 days holiday rising to 43 with service (including Bank Holidays)
* Programmes for physical and mental wellbeing support
* Free access to GP via MetLife- 24/7 GP services, private prescriptions and more for you and your family
* Health cash plan
* Unlimited access to an employee assistance programme
* Pension scheme with enhanced employer contribution
* Professional fees paid with Continuing Professional Development and personal development support.
* Life assurance
* 20% discount on Pet Plan pet insurance
* Enhanced family friendly policies
* Recognition scheme
* Annual volunteer days
* Charity worker discounts across a variety of retailers
To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.
If you’d like to learn more about Blue Cross, our mission, and the work we do to support animals and people, take a look at our About Us page