Senior Culture and Engagement Lead

Senior Culture and Engagement Lead

Organisational Development & Culture

Band 10 | Permanent | Full‑time
Location: County Hall

Salary: £50,269 - £54.495

Interviews to be held 14th July 2026

Northumberland County Council is undergoing a major transformation to modernise how we work, strengthen leadership, and create a modern, inclusive and high‑performing organisation that puts residents first.

As part of this, we are redesigning our Organisational Development & Culture (OD&C) service and we are now recruiting a Senior Culture and Engagement lead to play a pivotal role in shaping how the organisation listens, understands itself and acts.

This is a senior role focused on strengthening culture, accountability, collaboration and employee connection across the organisation. You will lead how we design and deliver employee engagement and listening approaches — ensuring our strategies are insight‑led, evidence‑driven and grounded in meaningful staff feedback.

You’ll play a critical role in shaping a listening organisation — where employee voice is prioritised, insight drives action, and engagement and culture are actively developed at scale.

About the Role

Reporting to the OD&C Senior Manager (Practice Lead: Culture, Leadership & Engagement), you will take a strategic, portfolio view of engagement, listening and culture insight work across the organisation.

This role is not only about understanding culture - it is about actively shaping it. You will lead and influence culture change across the organisation, working with senior leaders to translate insight into visible shifts in behaviour, leadership practice and organisational norms.

This role goes beyond insight generation. You will partner with senior leaders to:

• Translate staff feedback (e.g. staff surveys, pulse and listening activity) into clear insight and organisation‑wide action that drives behavioural and cultural change
• Design and lead engagement strategies, culture change initiatives and listening cycles that embed sustainable changes in practice
• Drive engagement activity that is rooted in evidence, feedback and best practice
• Shape organisational narrative and ensure insight meaningfully informs leadership behaviour, decision making and the organisation’s evolving culture

You will lead the development of our internal listening and engagement plans, maximising our employee voice systems and using data‑driven insight to measure, refine and scale impact.

About You – what we’re looking for

• Significant experience in employee engagement, organisational listening, culture transformation or OD
• Strong qualitative and quantitative insight capability, with ability to synthesise complex data into clear, compelling insight
• Experience influencing and partnering with senior leaders to drive engagement and cultural change
• Ability to translate insight into practical, organisation‑wide action that delivers sustained behavioural and cultural impact
• A track record of leading engagement strategies and insight‑driven organisational initiatives
• Confident operating in an agile, iterative way (e.g. test‑and‑learn, evolving approaches as insight emerges)
• Skilled facilitator, able to build trust and rapport quickly across all levels of a large, complex organisation
• Able to connect (“join the dots”) across culture, engagement and leadership insight to identify root causes and shape coherent, system‑wide action

You may come from an OD, engagement, research, organisational psychology or culture/change background — we are interested in the strength of your insight practice, judgement and impact.

Why Join Northumberland?

• A rare opportunity to shape how an organisation listens and learns
• A senior OD role with real influence and visibility
• The chance to build organisational‑level engagement and insight capability
• An OD&C service with strong senior sponsorship
• Attractive local government benefits including generous leave, pension, agile working and wellbeing support
• Attractive local government benefits including generous leave, pension, agile working and wellbeing support
• 26 days annual leave plus public/bank holidays, rising to 31 days after 5 years of service (pro rata for part-time employees)
• Automatic enrolment into the Local Government Pension Scheme
• Flexi scheme – up to 2 days flexible leave available per month (pro rata for part-time employees)

Whilst we offer hybrid working, there is a requirement to attend County Hall on a regular basis, along with a need to support services areas in person as required.

For further information about working for NCC, please visit our website here.

How to Apply

Please submit your application and a supporting statement outlining how your experience and OD practice align with the role. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a selection event on 14th July 2026.

The attached candidate pack provides further detail to support your application.

If you would like to arrange an informal discussion, please email marie.curry@northumberland.gov.uk

Closing date for applications is midnight on 28th June 2026.

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Further information
For guidance on completing your application and for information about our Equality and Diversity principles, please see the attached guidance notes here.

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria.

Alternative application format:
British Sign Language: northumberlandcc-cs.signvideo.net
For those with speech difficulties or hearing loss: Text relay service dial 018001 01670 623930