Job Description

Do you believe learning is the root of place-based change? Are you driven to turn insight, evidence and lived experience into action that improves lives?

Active Black Country is recruiting 3 Learning Leads to play a pivotal role in shaping a more active, healthier future across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.As a Learning Lead, you’ll put learning at the heart of place-based working - capturing what’s working (and what isn’t), sharing insight across partners, and strengthening collaboration to tackle physical inactivity through Sport England’s Place-Based investment.

We’re looking for people who love connecting dots and people - champions of co-design, reflection and evidence-led practice. You’ll be curious, influential and confident turning complex learning into practical action that drives health and social change.

Your experience could come from any sector - community development, health, education, local government, research or beyond. What matters most is your expertise to lead learning, build trusted relationships and help places learn their way forward.

If you’re excited by the idea of learning with communities, not just about them — we’d love to hear from you. Application deadline: 30th January 2026. 

Role description:

The learning lead will work with local partners to ensure strategic learning is captured &

applied to develop partnerships and strengthen understanding to collectively tackle physical

inactivity and support wider health and social outcomes.

Working to established learning goals the learning lead is responsible for developing,

implementing, and managing learning and development initiatives that enhance connectivity

and understanding between partners to work together. This will involve providing focused

support to partners to capture accurate insight & learning, assessing what works and what

does not, ensuring key learning is shared throughout the process with partners and

communities.

The learning lead will work as part of a team, working across the areas of Dudley, Sandwell,

Walsall and Wolverhampton respectively, whilst engaging with partners & organisations at a

Black Country level to focus on the agendas of transport, housing and health.

Main Duties:

1. Work with the place partners across the 4 Black Country local authority areas and Active Black Country to implement the Monitoring Evaluation & Learning framework as part of the Sport England ‘Place Based’ investment.

2. Develop effective working relationships with a breadth of partners and organisations to support collaboration and the development of a shared purpose to address inequalities that prevent people from moving and being active. 

3. Working with the support of the learning and monitoring & evaluation partners, ensure strategic learning is captured and applied to help us fulfil organisational and place ambitions. 

4. Develop a SMART learning plan for each place, drawing in the real time priorities of partners, ensuring community engagement is at the heart of decision making. 

5. Champion how partners can cascade learning into their organisation to influence wider change, devising creative ways to share the learning at a local level, highlighting need and connecting to priorities to maintain momentum. 

6. Be an advocate for the Behaviour Change framework to ensure this is fully embedded by partners and community groups, ensuring communities are engaged and involved in the co-creation of marketing collateral and key messages.

 7. Participate in local forums and meetings, including forming part of the learning forum, chaired by Active Black Country, to share learning and identify opportunities to integrate physical activity across the thematic areas of transport, health & housing. 

8. Review existing local data and insight, identifying gaps and areas that require further exploration. 

9. Support the local test and learn interventions that have been identified as part of the Place Expansion Development Award, capturing the key learning to support the development award. 

10. Support partners with monitoring, evaluation and learning. 

11. Work with the Active Black Country Strategic Communications Lead to share case studies and good news stories. 

12. To be responsible and take reasonable care for the Health, Safety and Welfare of self and other employees and the public in accordance with Health and Safety Legislation and company procedures. 

13. To adhere to the Data Protection Act at all times. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times. 

14. To adhere to all relevant policies and procedures at all times. 

15. To undertake such other duties as may be appropriate

Person Specification:

1. Able to work as a trusted partner and build strong, effective, and valued relationships across a wide range of people and organisations.

2. Visibly values and promotes co-design and can bring people together to jointly create innovative ideas and practice. 

3. Skilled in building trust and long-term relationships across sectors—especially with local partners, community-based organisations, local authorities and charities. 

4. Proven experience supporting specific communities or localities—particularly in roles involving community development, learning or collaborative partnerships, ideally across the Black Country. 

5. Demonstrates professional, voluntary, or lived experience of communities most marginalised or under-represented in being active. Has knowledge and understanding of the barriers to activity. Can articulate, demonstrate, or evidence the valuable role that physical activity and sport can contribute to health, environmental & socio-economic outcomes. 

6. Strong understanding of how to track, assess, and learn from outcomes in complex, community-driven settings. Familiarity with both qualitative and quantitative methods. 

7. Skilled at applying evidence led approaches to design effective learning interventions which build meaningful impact. 

8. Demonstrable expertise in building a culture of continuous improvement and reflective practice, by supporting teams to ask effective questions, use data wisely, and apply learning practically. 

9. Able to work with complexity and influence and advocate for learning beyond programme delivery. 

10. Proven experience in using learning as a driver for change. Demonstrating a deep commitment to inclusive practice, with experience applying in real-world settings. 

11. Can effectively prioritise and set and meet objectives within deadlines and planned goals. 

12. Can demonstrate a quality of thought disseminating data, insight and trends translating it into meaningful action and decision making. 

13. Strong written and verbal skills, able to distil learning clearly for different audiences, including communities, partners, and funders. 

14. A self-starter who shows skills in agile and adaptive working proving they can respond quickly, work flexibly and navigate through fast-paced, changing, complex and uncertain environments.