Full Time Senior Fieldwork Manager – Mainstream Fostering

About the Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join Sheffield City Council’s Fostering Service as a Senior Fieldwork Manager within our Mainstream Fostering Team. We are committed to ensuring that children and young people who cannot live with their birth families have access to safe, nurturing and stable family-based care, enabling them to remain connected to their communities wherever possible.

As Senior Fieldwork Manager, you will provide strong operational leadership and oversight to a team of supervising social workers and support staff, ensuring high-quality support, supervision and development opportunities for Sheffield's foster carers. You will play a key role in driving excellent practice, safeguarding children, and ensuring positive outcomes for children and young people in foster care.

Working as part of the wider Fostering Service management team, you will contribute to service development, quality assurance, performance management and strategic planning.

To support a flexible and responsive service, you may also be required to contribute to other areas of the Fostering Service in line with service priorities.

About You

We are looking for an experienced, motivated and child-centred social work professional who is passionate about supporting foster carers and improving outcomes for children and young people.

You will be a qualified Social Worker, registered with Social Work England, with significant post-qualification experience in children's social care and experience of supervising or managing staff within fostering or related services.

You will be able to demonstrate:

Extensive experience within fostering, permanence, children's social care or related services.
Experience of managing, supervising or developing social work staff and promoting high standards of practice.
Strong leadership skills, with the ability to motivate, support and develop individuals and teams.
A sound understanding of fostering legislation, regulations, national minimum standards and safeguarding responsibilities.
Confidence in providing oversight of complex cases, fostering assessments and support plans.
The ability to review workloads, monitor performance and ensure timely, high-quality service delivery.
Excellent analytical skills and confidence in making decisions in complex and uncertain situations.
Strong skills in quality assurance, performance management and continuous service improvement.
The ability to manage complaints, concerns and challenging situations professionally and constructively.
Excellent communication, negotiation and partnership-working skills.
A commitment to working collaboratively with foster carers, children, families and partner agencies.
A creative and solution-focused approach to problem solving.
A passion for championing the voice of children and ensuring they experience safe, stable and nurturing family homes.

What We Offer

This is an excellent opportunity to join a supportive and ambitious service that is committed to continuous improvement and professional development.

We offer:

A strong culture of learning and development.
Access to high-quality management and leadership training pathways.
Regular professional supervision and support.
Opportunities to contribute to service development and innovation.
A collaborative working environment with experienced colleagues across Children's Services.
The opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of children, young people and foster families across Sheffield.

Above all, we are looking for someone who is committed to making a lasting difference for children and young people through high-quality fostering support and leadership.

For an informal discussion, please contact either clare.robinson@sheffield.gov.uk or natalie.Joseph-pancaro@sheffield.gov.uk

Interviews will be held on Friday 24 July 2026.

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. Find out more on our Sheff news page.

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.