Head of Delivery - Migration

We value diverse perspectives and experiences and are striving to create an inclusive workplace culture that is accepting of all and free from discrimination and bias.

Coventry City Council’s Migration Team supports newly arrived communities to build settled, independent lives in the city. Our work focuses on practical integration pathways, including employment, skills, education, English language support and access to local services, helping refugees, people seeking asylum and other migrant communities contribute to Coventry’s economic, civic and social life.

We offer the opportunity to make a lasting impact on one of the UK's most ambitious cities while working alongside talented colleagues dedicated to delivering outstanding services for residents.

Join us in making Coventry a place people choose to live, learn, and work.

In line with our One Coventry Values, we want to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organisation that encourages diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking. We particularly welcome applicants from minority ethnic, LGBT+, disabled and neurodiverse communities to make a real difference to our residents so that equity and respect remains at the heart of everything we do.

Our Values are:

• Open and fair: We are fair, open, and transparent.
• Nurture and develop: We help and encourage everyone to be their best and do their best.
• Engage and empower: We talk and listen to others, working together as one.
• Create and innovate: We embrace new ways of working to continuously improve.
• Own and be accountable: We work together to deliver the best services for our residents.
• Value and respect: We put diversity and inclusion at the heart of all we do.

Shape how Coventry Responds to Migration

Help shape how Coventry responds to migration, demographic change and the opportunities of an increasingly diverse city. Coventry has a long history of inward migration. Successive generations of people arriving in the city have contributed to its economic growth, helped build its industries and public services, and enriched the social and cultural life of the city.

About the Role

Today, Coventry continues to change. We are looking for an exceptional leader to join Coventry City Council as Head of Delivery (Migration) in our Migration Service, part of the Public Health and Migration Directorate. This is a senior strategic role with a wider purpose than the delivery of migration programmes alone. You will help the Council understand and respond to demographic change, ensuring our resources, services and partnerships adapt effectively to the changing needs of residents and communities. By anticipating change and intervening earlier, you will also help alleviate pressures on public services and reduce avoidable future demand.

We want to move beyond responding to need after it arises. You will help develop a more preventative approach, using insight, evidence and strong partnerships to improve integration, reduce poverty and inequality, strengthen social cohesion and create greater opportunities for people to become independent and participate fully in the life of the city. You will direct the Migration Service Business Plan and lead its business, finance, performance and impact functions. You will also provide strategic leadership and advice across migration, related to integration, migrant health, NRPF clients, reducing poverty, Health Devolution and the wider determinants of health.

All candidates must have the Right to Work in the UK. We are currently not offering sponsorship for this role.

Working across the Council and with local, regional and national partners, you will turn policy, intelligence and evidence into practical action. You will help connect programmes and resources around shared outcomes for Coventry and ensure that the impact of our work is understood and demonstrated. Above all, we are looking for someone who sees successful integration as an opportunity for the whole city.

You will understand that supporting people to become independent, economically active and connected to their communities can improve individual lives while strengthening Coventry socially and economically. You will be equally comfortable thinking strategically, working across organisational boundaries and ensuring that ambition translates into effective delivery. This is an opportunity to help shape the next stage of Coventry’s approach to migration, integration and social cohesion. It is an opportunity to build on the contribution that migration has made to Coventry, while developing new approaches to the challenges and opportunities created by demographic change.

Key Relationships

You will work closely with:

Internal stakeholders: Elected Members, Strategic Lead for Migration, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing, senior officers and colleagues in frontline services across the Council.

External stakeholders: Residents, local communities, MPs, voluntary and community organisations, neighbouring and regional authorities, academic stakeholders, Home Office, MHCLG and other external partners.

If you are an ambitious, collaborative and evidence-led leader who wants to make a lasting difference to a diverse and evolving city, we would like to hear from you.

Assessment and interviews to be held in person in Coventry on Friday 4th December, 2026.

For an informal discussion, contact Peter Barnett via email - peter.barnett@coventry.gov.uk

If you need help or support to complete your application, please visit our accessibility page to see how we can assist you.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme - As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role and identify with one of the below criteria:

• Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
• Are currently in care or have previously been in care
• If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition

For full details on the application process please read the attached document on our jobs page labelled 'Coventry City Council Application Process'. If there is any evidence of a candidate using AI to complete their application, then the application will be rejected unless the candidate can provide a justification which the Council considers to be reasonable.

Interview date: 4th December 2026

Coventry has a proud, innovative and creative spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change.

We are cutting-edge, challenging, youthful, vibrant and diverse.

At Coventry we are committed to excellence in everything we do. With around 5100 staff from a range of different backgrounds, our aim is to recruit and develop talented people who will focus on our customers, take responsibility, work together and find better ways of doing things.

To deliver the best services to our residents, we need the best people working for us to make a difference to our communities.

International City of Peace and Reconciliation

Coventry is proud to be a City of Sanctuary and an International City of Peace and Reconciliation. We want our approach to migration, integration and social cohesion to reflect those values while delivering better outcomes for all Coventry residents.

If you join us, we will provide a fantastic rewards and benefits package - to find out more please visit https://www.coventry.gov.uk/council-vacancies