Legal Manager

Legal Manager

UK

Location: London-based or remote in the UK, as long as travel to the office in London for two consecutive days per month is feasible

Role: Permanent, full time

Salary: £50,000 plus 10% employer-contributed pension; 4 day full-time work week (Monday – Thursday)

Belgium

Location: Brussels-based with minimum 2 days per week in the Brussels office and bi-monthly travel to London.

Role: Permanent, full time

Salary: € 4310.34 per month plus 8% employer-contributed pension; 4 day full-time work week (Monday – Thursday)

About us

Established in 2021, Opportunity Green is a fast-growing not-for-profit organisation that helps to identify and unlock opportunities to tackle climate change. We build ambitious coalitions, support climate vulnerable countries in international negotiations and find innovative legal pathways to fight climate change.

Our legal team works on climate legal actions relating to the aviation, shipping, agriculture, finance, medium-heavy duty vehicles, and steel sectors in the UK, EU, and internationally. We provide strategic legal analysis to support decarbonisation in these sectors; undertake legal interventions, including legal challenges and litigation; and engage in legal advocacy, including submissions to international courts, states, and the United Nations.

What’s the role?

Opportunity Green has scoped strategic legal avenues to decarbonise the European medium to heavy duty vehicles sector and is now in the process of implementing this strategy. Our legal work in this area focuses on corporate accountability and using novel legal interventions to drive systemic change in the sector.

We are now looking for a Legal Manager to lead this work for nine months to cover a period of maternity leave. You will use your legal skills to develop and implement the legal interventions, with support from external legal counsel, your line manager and the wider legal team.

After this initial period, you will support our legal work across other sectors and themes. You will be working at the cutting edge of climate law in new and emerging areas and use your legal skills to drive forward innovative and strategic legal actions. You will work closely with a wide range of organisations to obtain technical and policy insight on your work.

You do not need to have existing knowledge of or experience in the sectors that we work in; it is your legal skills that are important for this role. We are open to UK and Belgium-based applicants; while the majority of our legal team is UK-based, we have a small but growing presence in Brussels and EU-qualified candidates are particularly welcomed here.

Our legal team is already achieving outsized impact with a great team spirit. We are looking for someone who is self-motivated, analytical and organised, but who is also a people person with great communication skills, a collaborative approach and a passion for fighting climate change. Opportunity Green is a growing organisation so you will also be involved in supporting other aspects of work, such as contributing to funding proposals, developing campaign strategy, and providing legal input into communications.

About the candidate

We are looking for a candidate that:

• Has a passion for using their legal skills to tackle climate change. 
• Is a qualified lawyer, with evident post-qualification experience (experience in litigation and/or EU competition law is desirable but not essential). Note this is not an entry level role.

Desirable skills and experience:

We do not expect any candidate to have all skills listed below but rather we look for transferable skills and potential as well as past experience.

• A high level of self-motivation and commitment to Opportunity Green’s values, ethos and purpose.
• An ability to see solutions to complex problems through a creative legal lens.
• Experience of writing high-quality legal analysis.
• Excellent attention to detail and an ability to work with technical and legal material.
• Confident written and oral communicator who can adapt complex ideas for different audiences.
• Proven project management skills and delivery of projects with impact.
• Excellent time management, with the ability to manage competing priorities, meet deadlines and set and communicate priorities.
• Experience of managing stakeholders (e.g. other NGOs, legal counsel, funders).
• Line management experience is highly desirable but not essential. 

What we offer UK

The successful candidate will be offered an annual salary of £50,000 plus 10% employer-contributed pension. Please note that Opportunity Green has fixed salary scales, with the possibility of step increases with strong performance. When hiring we always hire at the bottom of a band and do not enter negotiations with new employees as negotiations have been historically shown to disadvantage women and minorities.

We take our team’s well-being and professional development seriously. In addition to a competitive salary, we offer: 

• A commitment to work/life balance, with a 4-day work week at 28 hours.
• A generous holiday entitlement of 20 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays and office closure between Christmas and New Year’s that does not count towards your holiday entitlement (and expectation that you fully disconnect when taking time off).
• A market-leading pension of 10%.
• A progressive family leave policy, including 26 weeks’ paid leave for both parents, as well as other support.
• Lots of flexibility within a hybrid working arrangement, with regular opportunities to come together as a team.

However, it is important to note that while this role is permanent, employment is always reliant on Opportunity Green continuing to receive philanthropic support from our funders, which we expect every member of the team to play their part in working towards.

What we offer - Belgium

The successful candidate will be offered € 4310.34 per month plus 8% employer-contributed pension. Please note that Opportunity Green has fixed salary scales. When hiring we always hire at the bottom of a band and do not enter negotiations with new employees as negotiations have been historically shown to disadvantage women and minorities. 

We take our team’s well-being and professional development seriously. In addition to a competitive salary, we offer:

• A commitment to work/life balance, with a 4-day work week at 28 hours.
• A generous holiday entitlement of 20 days’ holiday per year, made up of 16 legal annual leave days and 4 extra-legal holiday days, plus Belgian bank holidays. Additional office closure between Christmas and New Year’s that does not count towards your holiday entitlement (and expectation that you fully disconnect when taking time off).
• A market-leading pension of 8%. 
• A progressive family leave policy, including 26 weeks’ paid leave for the new parent, as well as other support.
• Lots of flexibility within a hybrid working arrangement, with regular opportunities to come together as a team.
• Support for your professional development as part of Opportunity Green, with a budget to support your learning & development plus opportunities to lead projects, publish content, learn from experts, work directly with policymakers and stakeholders, and take part in conferences and events.

However, it is important to note that while this role is permanent, employment is always reliant on Opportunity Green continuing to receive philanthropic support from our funders, which we expect every member of the team to play their part in working towards.

How to apply

To minimise the risk of unconscious bias, we ask that applicants remove certain identifying elements from their CVs. If you do not remove these details, we reserve the right to withdraw your application from review. 

• Photos
• Name – if needed, please use ‘Applicant’
• Age 
• Email and/or phone number 

We also reserve the right to withdraw your application from review if you use AI tools such as Chat GPT to complete the sift questions / write your CV.  

Unfortunately, if you do not already hold the right to work in the UK/Belgium and/or require sponsorship to continue working in the UK/Belgium, Opportunity Green will not be able to consider your application at this time. 

The closing date for applications is 10th August 2026 at 9am BST.   

We actively encourage applicants to reach out if there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to help them demonstrate their full potential in the hiring process.   

Please get in touch at recruitment@opportunitygreen.org and we can discuss how to best make the recruitment process as accessible and comfortable for you as possible.  

You can read our application guide here. 

What happens next? 

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an online interview to discuss their experience and suitability for the role. After this, candidates that are most suitable for the vacancy will be invited for an in-person interview in our London office, for which there may also be a short task. Travel will be reimbursed for non-London-based applicants (including from Belgium).  

Online interviews are likely to take place w/c 31st August. In person interviews will likely be shortly after this (w/c 7th September in London) 

We reserve the right to ask for references during the recruitment process. 

If you have any questions, or you need any reasonable adjustments at the application stage, please contact recruitment@opportunitygreen.org