Business Planning & Performance Specialist

Business Planning & Performance Specialist

Permanent. Full Time. Hybrid working. (You will be required to attend the office for a minimum of 2 days per week with the option to work remotely for the remaining 3 days).

Location: The role can be based in the following locations:

UK - Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, or Warrington

Salary:

London: £53,459 (including London allowance) per annum

Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Warrington - £48,576 per annum

Applications are reviewed on an ongoing basis. We will be conducting interviews as suitable candidates apply and we'll ready to hire if we find the right person before the job ad closes. So, if you're interested in this role we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

About us

Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. We are a global movement of people, churches and local organisations who passionately champion dignity, equality and justice worldwide. We are the changemakers, the peacemakers, the mighty of heart.

We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and recognise the value this brings in forming strong, creative and high performing teams. We welcome applications from all sections of the community, and from those with experience from outside of the voluntary sector. And no, you don’t have to be Christian to work here – we encourage people of all faiths and none to apply. We just ask that everyone lives out our values of dignity, equality, justice and love. We value a good work-life balance, so we’re open to part-time and flexible working. We also offer hybrid working for our office-based colleagues and the option of being a homeworker for most of our roles too.

About the role

Reporting in to the Strategy & Performance Lead, the Business Planning & Performance Specialist will co-lead the corporate planning and reporting cycle, cascading the global strategy into annual corporate plans and OKRs, while fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

The post-holder will partner with their assigned departments to support them to be high performing teams with business plans aligned to organisational values and goals, and together with the Strategy and Performance Lead and the Business Insights & Intelligence Analyst, they ensure alignment between departmental objectives, operational plans, measures of success and support high performance.

Some of the main responsibilities of the Business Planning & Performance Specialist will include:

• Support the Strategy and Performance Lead in setting and maintaining the strategic planning framework cascading strategy into annual business plans for all business units, enabling alignment with organisational values and goals.
• Co-Lead Corporate Planning and Reporting: Co-lead the organisation-wide corporate planning and reporting cycle—shaping the organisation annual corporate plan, defining OKRs, and tracking progress. Work alongside the other Business Planning and Performance Specialist to drive a consistent and effective business planning process.
• Lead Development of Business Plans and OKRs: Lead the development of annual departmental business plans and OKRs, ensuring alignment with corporate OKRs and integrating budgeting and risk management to produce coherent, strategically connected plans.
• Support Departmental Leadership: Work closely with Senior Management Teams—particularly within Income and Public Engagement, Finance, and Governance—to develop and deliver clear, trackable business plans aligned with organisational strategy. Serve as an active member of relevant departmental management teams to ensure Christian Aid’s strategy and corporate plan are fully embedded across both operational and strategic workstreams.
• Manage Corporate Performance Reporting: Oversee organisation-wide performance tracking and reporting, ensuring timely and accurate updates for senior leaders and key external stakeholders, including inputs to Christian Aid’s Annual Report & Accounts.
• Ensure Strategic Alignment: Liaise closely with the Strategy and Learning Manager and the Impact and Evidence Manager to ensure departmental plans are aligned with the overarching organisational strategy and can support effective reporting and performance management.
• Facilitate strategic decision-making, prioritisation, and tracking of performance against plans in the department, feeding back continuously to improve performance.
• Strengthen Leadership Engagement: Coordinate with senior leaders to support strategic engagement with business plans and performance reports, enabling strategic thinking, accountability, and maximising impact.
• Champion Data-Driven Culture: Promote and embed a data culture across the organisation, working closely with Business Insights & Intelligence Analysts to support data-informed decision-making.
• Promote Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of continuous improvement and lead enhancements to planning and performance processes to improve organisational effectiveness.
• Collaborate Across the Organisation: Work collaboratively with internal stakeholders to ensure quality engagement, consistent approaches, and alignment across planning, performance, and learning activities.

About you

Who we are looking for

Essential:

• Significant experience in leading organisational planning and performance within a complex, multi-unit environment, including translating strategy into coherent, actionable operational and business plans.
• Strong analytical skills, with significant experience using a range of qualitative and quantitative data sources to inform planning, prioritisation and performance monitoring.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively across departments and leadership groups, building consensus on strategic goals, OKRs and performance measures.
• Experience producing high-quality organisational reporting, such as Annual Reports, Progress Reports, Results Reports or similar publications.
• Broad organisational understanding, with knowledge and experience of working finance and governance, or fundraising teams
• High-level facilitation and engagement skills, with the ability to communicate planning and performance concepts clearly, run effective workshops, and ensure corporate processes are accessible and well understood- fostering high ownership and accountability behaviours in teams.
• Strong financial literacy, including understanding of budgeting and financial management practices, and the ability to integrate financial planning with business planning.
• Advanced planning, performance and prioritisation skills across diverse functions and operating contexts.
• Solid grounding in project management, including practical tools and methods for tracking and delivering multi-stream plans.
• Highly developed problem-solving skills and the ability to find innovative and practical solutions.
• Excellent negotiation and influencing skills, with the ability to secure buy-in, shift behaviours, and support adoption of new processes and ways of working across the organisation.

Desirable:

• Highly developed communication skills and the ability to understand and translate complex information to a variety of audiences.
• Experience working in multicultural and diverse environments with a strong commitment to Christian Aid’s values and mission.
• Experience of working in a dispersed team.
• Highly developed ability to think strategically and laterally, combining big picture thinking with practical application.

Further information

At Christian Aid we strive to be an inclusive and diverse employer and recognise the value that this brings in helping to build strong, creative and high performing teams.

We are actively encouraging racialised minorities, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people with caring responsibilities, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, women, and older workers to apply. This is because these groups are under-represented within our teams, especially at senior level, and we recognise and value the contributions members of these groups make to strong, creative and high performing teams.

We have a strong Christian ethos and we encourage applications from all faiths. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of and sympathy with Christian Aid’s faith identity.

All successful candidates will require a DBS/police check appropriate to the role and location and a Counter Terrorism Sanction check as part of your clearance for commencing your role with us. We also participate in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, we will request information as part of the referencing process from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

This role requires applicants to have the right to live and work in the country where this position is based and undertake the role that you have been offered. If you are successful and we make you an offer for the role, we will be required to conduct a right to work check on your immigration status in the UK. We will contact you regarding the documentation you will need to provide to evidence this.