Health and Safety Manager

Job description

Health and Safety Manager

Application Deadline: 23 October 2026

Department: Estates

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Wigan & Leigh College

Compensation: GBP 42,540 - GBP 45,119 / year

Description

Health & Safety Manager37 Hours per Week | Permanent | All Year Round

About this jobGood health and safety isn't about creating more paperwork. It's about understanding where the real risks are, putting effective controls in place and giving people the confidence to manage them well.

As our Health and Safety Manager, you'll be the College's competent source of professional health and safety advice. You'll provide leadership, challenge and assurance across our campuses, curriculum areas and operational services, helping us maintain arrangements that are safe, proportionate and effective in practice.

You'll work with managers to build their confidence and capability, rather than taking responsibility away from them. You'll help us understand where our biggest risks sit, test whether our controls are working and make sure significant issues remain visible until they are resolved.

And there is plenty of variety. Our environment includes classrooms, engineering and construction workshops, laboratories, specialist facilities, public spaces, contractors, events and major estate activity. Different environments bring different risks, so professional judgement and proportionality really matter here.

This role would suit an experienced health and safety professional who combines technical credibility with practical judgement, strong systems thinking and the ability to bring people with them.

What you'll do

• Act as the College's competent source of health and safety advice, providing practical, authoritative advice and professional challenge.
• Lead and continuously improve our health and safety framework, systems, policies and improvement plan.
• Coach managers to understand their responsibilities, assess risk and put effective, proportionate controls in place.
• Lead a risk-based programme of audits, inspections and assurance activity, making sure significant actions are followed through.Investigate significant incidents and near misses, identify root causes and turn learning into practical improvement.
• Provide professional oversight of key safety and emergency arrangements, including fire safety, first aid, evacuation and lockdown.
• Use compliance information, data from our CAFM system and dashboards to give leaders clear visibility of risk, trends and outstanding actions.
• Keep legislation, regulation and good practice under review and translate changes into practical action for the College.

What you'll bring

• A recognised professional health and safety qualification, normally a NEBOSH Diploma or equivalent.
• Membership of a relevant professional body, or the ability to obtain appropriate membership.
• Significant professional health and safety experience within a complex organisation.
• Experience developing and improving health and safety management systems.
• Experience delivering risk-based audits, inspections and assurance activity.
• Strong experience of accident and incident investigation, including identifying underlying and root causes.
• Experience advising on risk assessment, safe systems of work and higher-risk activities.
• Strong coaching and influencing skills, with experience helping managers take ownership of health and safety.
• The professional judgement to distinguish significant risk from lower-level issues and recommend proportionate action.
• Confidence using digital systems, data and dashboards to identify trends and provide assurance.
• Experience in further education, education, construction, public services or another complex regulated environment would be useful, but we're more interested in your ability to build effective systems, develop people and influence change.

What you're like

Practical. You turn legislation and professional standards into arrangements people can understand and use.
Proportionate. You focus attention where the risk is greatest rather than creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
A coach. You build managers' confidence and capability rather than creating dependency on the health and safety function.
Independent. You give honest professional advice and constructive challenge, including when the message isn't easy.
Curious. You look beyond what happened to understand why it happened and what needs to change.
Clear. You can explain complex risk, technical and legal information in a way that helps people make good decisions.
Credible. You build trust with managers, senior leaders, employees, trade unions and technical specialists.
Persistent. You make sure significant actions remain visible until the risk is properly controlled.

Essentials

• You'll need an enhanced DBS check. If you get the job, we'll do this for you.
• You're committed to safeguarding and inclusion.
• You can travel across our sites and attend external meetings when required.
• You're flexible and able to respond where incidents, investigations, drills or College activity occasionally require work outside normal hours.
• You're committed to maintaining your professional competence and continuing professional development.

Why work with us?

A college is a fascinating place to lead health and safety.

Every day, people move between classrooms, workshops, laboratories, specialist facilities and public spaces. Contractors work across our estate, projects change our buildings and new equipment, technologies and activities are constantly being introduced.

That makes this much more than a compliance role.

You'll have the opportunity to influence how health and safety works across the whole organisation. You'll work with Estates, curriculum teams, HR, senior leaders, trade unions, contractors, consultants and governors, and your professional advice will help shape decisions about our people, buildings, activities and projects.

We want health and safety to be understood as part of good management rather than something owned by one specialist team. If you enjoy developing people as much as advising them, improving systems as much as checking them, and turning professional standards into practical everyday arrangements, this could be a very good fit.

Great people. Change lives.

Time to recharge

• Generous annual leave entitlement, including bank holidays
• Family-friendly leave policies

Wellbeing as well as work

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme
• Medicash healthcare plan
• Occupational health and confidential counselling
• Specsavers eye test vouchers
• A culture where people look out for each other

Financial peace of mind

• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Salary sacrifice schemes, including Cycle to Work and buy tech
• Railcard and Tusker Green Car Scheme
• Local and national discount schemes

Clear progression routes

• Ongoing professional and leadership development
• Support to maintain your professional competence and CPD
• Opportunities to influence College-wide safety, assurance and organisational improvement
• Opportunities to step up, specialise or develop your career across the College

Read more about our benefits.

Please complete our application form in full. We can't accept CVs.

Health and Safety Manager. Apply now.