Associate Director of Student Life, Health & Wellbeing
As part of University’s Senior Leadership Group (SLG), you will provide leadership and strategic focus for student support, wellbeing and inclusion services within the Directorate for Students, across the University and externally. You will contribute to the strategic and operational delivery of the University’s long-term vision for student support through a centralised service model, ensuring services are aligned with the Town House Strategy, and incorporate our core institutional values of ambitious, enterprising, inclusive and innovative.
You will lead the delivery of specialist ‘second line’ student life, health and wellbeing services to meet identified student needs throughout the student lifecycle. This includes responsibility for disability and mental health support, counselling and wellbeing, sports and active lifestyles, accommodation, financial support, money advice and student inclusion. You will provide expert advice and guidance on developments in legislation and regulations that impact student life, health and wellbeing services and ensure our provision adapts to these, with a focus on continuous improvement.
As an institutional safeguarding lead, you will ensure the development and implementation of the University’s safeguarding policy and procedure and be a point of escalation for student safeguarding and wellbeing concerns.
The Person
The successful candidate will have experience of providing student support services in a university setting, assessing and managing risk, and dealing with a range of scenarios, including audits, safeguarding concerns and crisis situations.
Significant leadership and management experience is essential, along with the ability to hold yourself and others accountable. You can anticipate and balance the needs of multiple stakeholders and interpret complex information quickly to solve problems and make reasoned and timely decisions. You will create a positive working environment, with a strong focus on managing, developing and motivating staff and embedding a high-performance culture.
You will be a strong communicator with strategic vision and a solution-focused approach, who is able to build partnerships and work collaboratively with others to ensure operational and strategic objectives are met to a high standard.
Directorate/Function
The Students Directorate delivers a seamless, high-quality experience for all current and future students to ensure they are “sought after” through supporting their participation, attainment, and success. This in turn creates a culture of high performance that is inclusive, innovative, ambitious and enterprising.
Student Services provides the University’s first- and second-line services for students incorporating Course Support and Administration, the Information Centre, Library and Learning Services, Student Engagement and Student Life, Health and Wellbeing. Services are designed to be accessible and inclusive of all students, to ensure they are supported and enabled to fully engage with and succeed in their studies.
Further information
This is a full-time position, covering shared parental leave for a period of 12 months. Applicants must be available to start work before August 2026.
The starting salary is competitive from £77,011.
Interviews are expected to take place on Tuesday 12 May 2026
For informal enquiries please contact Jenni Woods, Student Services Director.
This post is available as a result of family leave, and it is expected that you will hold it for the full period. However, should the post-holder on family leave exercise their right to return to work earlier, then this appointment will be terminated, subject to a notice period of one month.
Bring your true self, expertise, and passion to Kingston where we are continuing to strive to build a university where authentic inclusion and belonging is at its heart. Every one of our staff and students’ identities, backgrounds and diverse experiences makes us who we are - so harness and embrace yours by applying today. We welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ communities and those with disabilities.
We are a place-based organisation, proud of our location in Kingston and the civic role we play in our community. Our campuses inspire collaborative, innovative and creative communities. Being present on campus is important to us because it helps us to create a sense of belonging for both our staff and students. Therefore, staff are expected to be on campus for the majority of their working week.
Candidates must be able to demonstrate their eligibility to work in the UK in accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. Where required, this may include entry clearance or continued leave to remain under the Points Based Immigration Scheme.
To apply click on ‘Apply Now’. If, for accessibility reasons, you need to apply in an alternative format, please email jobs@kingston.ac.uk or call the HR Shared Services team on 020 8417 3118.