Salary: £56,475 to £61,133
Location: The Council House
Hours: 37 hours a week
Closing Date: 14 June 2026
Contract Type: Permanent
About the Role
Derby City Council is seeking an experienced and motivated Team Manager to lead a specialist team of Social Workers delivering statutory services to:
- Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), and
- Children who have a long-term plan of care and migration-related needs (for example, children from EU states who have settled in the UK and are looked after by the Local Authority).
The team will ensure all legal duties are met both in relation to children’s looked after status and their asylum or immigration status, in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework and regulatory and statutory guidance. You will ensure practice is firmly rooted in Derby Children’s Social Care’s strengths-based practice model.
Alongside operational management, this role will hold a strategic lead on specialist migration work within Children’s Social Care, ensuring that all work:
- Reflects the latest regulatory and statutory requirements for Local Authorities, and
- Addresses the legal duties owed to young people as they become eligible for leaving care services at age 18, ensuring continuity of support and provision up to age 25.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead, manage and support a team of Social Workers working with UASC and children in long-term care with migration-related needs.
- Ensure high-quality, child-centred assessments, care planning and interventions which promote safety, stability and permanency.
- Oversee practice to ensure that all legal duties in relation to looked after children and asylum/immigration status are fully met.
- Provide strategic leadership and expertise on specialist migration issues affecting children and young adults up to age 25.
- Ensure robust transition planning for young people approaching 18, including those eligible for leaving care services, to secure continuity of support and provision.
- Maintain robust quality assurance and performance management arrangements, ensuring practice is of a consistently high standard.
- Provide reflective supervision, coaching and professional development opportunities for team members.
- Ensure compliance with statutory requirements, regulatory frameworks and guidance relating to children’s social care, safeguarding and asylum/immigration.
- Work closely with partner agencies (e.g. Home Office, legal representatives, health, education, voluntary sector) to coordinate effective and lawful support.
- Contribute to service development and implementation of the Children’s Social Care National Framework locally, developing and embedding innovative and progressive practice.
About You
You will be a confident, reflective and compassionate leader with a strong commitment to improving outcomes for children and young adults with migration-related needs. You will combine high-quality social work practice knowledge with the ability to lead, influence and innovate.
Essential qualifications and registration
- A recognised Social Work qualification (e.g. BA, MA, DipSW or equivalent).
- Social Work England registration.
Essential experience
- Substantial post-qualifying experience in front-line children’s social work.
- Experience of care proceedings and court-related work.
- Experience in a leadership and/or management role within Children’s Social Care (e.g. Senior Social Worker, Practice Supervisor, Assistant Team Manager, Team Manager, or equivalent).
- Experience of working with children in specialist migration contexts, such as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children or children with immigration/settled status needs.
- Experience of working with looked after children and care experienced young people, including planning for long-term care and transitions.
Knowledge, skills and attributes
- Strong understanding of child welfare and safeguarding legal frameworks (e.g. Children Act 1989/2004, Children (Leaving Care) regulation, Working Together to Safeguard Children).
- Knowledge of legal and regulatory frameworks related to asylum and immigration status for children and young adults up to age 25, including rights and entitlements of UASC and care leavers with unresolved or limited leave status.
- Demonstrable experience of quality assurance, audit and performance management in social work services.
- Strong analytical and decision-making skills, with the ability to balance risk and protective factors and make evidence-based decisions.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build effective, culturally competent relationships with children, young adults, families, carers and partner agencies.
- Proven ability to be solution-focused, resilient and able to manage complexity, ambiguity and competing demands.
- Commitment to strengths-based, child- and young adult-centred practice and to working in partnership with children and young people as experts in their own lives.
- Ability to lead and contribute to strategic development, policy implementation and service improvement, particularly in relation to migration and asylum.
What We Offer
- The opportunity to lead an innovative and progressive specialist team at the forefront of migration and asylum work within Derby’s Children’s Social Care.
- A supportive management structure and peer network, with regular reflective supervision.
- Access to ongoing professional development, including training in leadership, safeguarding and specialist migration/asylum practice.
- A commitment to staff wellbeing, flexible working arrangements (where possible) and a positive, inclusive workplace culture.
For an informal discussion about the role, please contact:
Johanna Barker Deputy Head of Service email
[email protected] arrange a telephone call
Derby City Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check and other relevant pre-employment checks.
We value diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community, particularly those with lived experience or background relevant to migration and asylum.
Who We Are
Here at Derby City Council, we’re dedicated to delivering nearly 250 first-class services to citizens and businesses in the heart of the Midlands. People are at the centre of all that we do, and we have an outstanding track record of recruiting and developing talented individuals by providing them with varied and fulfilling career opportunities. Find out more about what it’s like to work for us.
What We Offer
You too could be part of something brilliant by becoming a colleague at Derby City Council; in addition to making a difference to the lives of people across the city, you’ll also receive:
- Flexible work/life balance scheme (depending on your role)
- Hybrid working (depending on your role)
- Modern office environment (depending on your job location)
- Continued professional development opportunities & career conversations
- 27 days annual leave (rising to 32 days after 5 years' service), plus bank holidays (depending on contract)
- Local Government Pension Scheme (depending on contract)
- Team Derby Rewards – retail and leisure discounts
- Tusker Car Benefit Scheme
- Cycle2Work Scheme & free cycle training
- Employee Assistance Programme, Wellbeing Calendar and Support
- Access to our Equality Employee Networks – LGBTQ+, Disabled Employee Network & Carers and our Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic Employee Support Network and Neurodiversity Network
- Support for colleagues who are carers
Next Steps
If you would like to apply for this vacancy via an application form, please submit an application via the Derby City Council website.
The closing date for this vacancy is at midnight on 14 June 2026. Any applications received after the closing date will not be accepted.
Interviews will be held: 17th July 2026
If you would prefer to apply for this job using your CV, then please download the attached Declaration Form and send it to
[email protected]. Without a completed declaration form, your application will not be accepted. We also encourage you to download the Equalities Form and return this to
[email protected] this is optional and will not affect your application.
Important Information
Links to the full Job Description and Person Specification are below.
As part of our safer recruitment checks the successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.
All employees will normally be appointed to the minimum of the grade for the job.
Before you complete your application, please read ourguidance on filling in your application form.
Remember to align your personal statement to the essential criteria in the Person Specification.
Please be aware that where there are colleagues within the organisation who are 'at risk' of redundancy, requirements to redeploy to another suitable role will apply and take priority.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
We are a fair and inclusive employer and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds. We recruit for diversity and value difference. As many of our roles can now be home-based, we are able to offer more opportunities for people who need this facility.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. If you are a disabled person, you have the choice to apply under our Guaranteed Interview Scheme so long as you demonstrate that you meet the essential requirements for the job.
We feel it is essential that we recruit a talented workforce that is as diverse as the community we work for.
Please let us know of any individual requirements or reasonable adjustments you may have during the application, interview, or onboarding process and we’ll do all we can to help. We strongly believe in social understanding of disability and for us it’s all about removing barriers to equality.
If you have any questions regarding this vacancy or are having difficulty applying, please contact our Recruitment Team on 01332 640844 (Relay UK - 18001 01332 640 844) or at
[email protected]https://www.derby.gov.uk/signing-service/
