Healthy Communities Manager - Full Time - New Forest

Join the Energy at Freedom Leisure – Do Good Feel Good!

At Freedom Leisure, we’re all about positive vibes, great people, and making a real impact. Yes, we run leisure and cultural facilities, gyms, and swimming pools—but at the heart of it all, it’s our people who make the difference.

As one of the UK’s leading charitable leisure trusts, we’re proud of our mission of Improving Lives Through Leisure. We’re here to help communities live healthier, happier lives by making our centres welcoming, inclusive, and accessible to everyone - because everyone deserves to feel good. We’re all about delivering amazing customer service with a smile—every single day. We create spaces where people feel at home, supported, and inspired.

If you’re passionate about helping others and love creating great experiences, you’ll feel right at home with us. You don’t need to be an expert to get started - we’ll give you all the training and support you need. With over 130 centres across England and Wales, there’s loads of room to grow. Many of our team have built amazing careers doing what they love, helping customers day-to-day and making people feel good

We’re proud to be a workplace where everyone is welcome, valued, and supported to thrive—because when our team reflects the communities we serve, we all grow stronger together.

The leisure sector increasingly contributes to community healthcare and our Healthy Communities Team are intrinsic to our current and future success; supporting communities to live active and healthy lives. To achieve this, we are recruiting a driven and innovative Healthy Communities Manager to manage our health and physical activity programme across New Forest.

The Healthy Communities Manager will strategically develop, manage and deliver Freedom Leisure’s Healthy Communities Programme, centred on meeting population needs, promoting positive behaviour change, and supporting New Forest residents to lead a healthy and active lifestyle.

Our ideal candidate will have strong relationship management skills, be an excellent communicator and have a successful track record in managing health‑related projects within community settings. With experience in sports development, physical activity and/or health referral, we are looking for someone who can manage resources to deliver quality‑assured programmes that are supported by national guidance, best practice and can evidence their impact. We are looking for someone with demonstrable experience of securing external funding, but most importantly the ability to work collaboratively with partners from the public, private, community and voluntary sector to deliver sustainable, participant‑focused services.

You will be required to travel across the New Forest district and to various locations across the country therefore the mobility to travel is essential.

In the event that a high volume of suitable applications are received, the post may close prior to the specified closing date. Please apply as soon as possible if interested.

Hours: 37 hours a week, Monday - Friday

Requirements:
• Demonstrable experience of project-managing, developing and delivering successful health related programmes and projects both directly, and in collaboration and partnership with other agencies and partners across a broad range of sectors
• Experience of managing, supervising and supporting coaches, instructors and volunteers to delivery a quality-assured service/ project
• Experience of monitoring and evaluating physical activity or health projects to communicate impact to internal and external stakeholders; whilst informing service development
• In-depth knowledge and understanding of health improvement: promoting positive behaviour change, tackling barriers to participation and addressing health inequalities
• Knowledge of Health Referral pathways and the processes and procedures required to support best practice
• Ability to plan and prioritise work – working under pressure to tight deadlines, organised and with a self-managing approach to work
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Excellent negotiation and influencing skills
• Experience of using Microsoft Office
• Mobility to travel and work across multiple sites within New Forest

Benefits:
We want you to love coming to work, feeling healthy, happy and valued. That's why we've developed a benefits package with you in mind, so what can we offer you?

• My Staff Shop, our very own staff benefit scheme, gives employees access to a great range of benefits. Get discounts on cinema tickets, travel bookings, high street e-vouchers, gift cards, days out, leisure activities and your day to day spending.
• Discounted Staff membership (including family members)
• Incremental holidays
• Employee Assistance Programme - 24/7 confidential, independent and professional counselling.
• Company pension
• Various insurance and saving schemes
• Financial advice
• Cycle-to-work and Car Leasing tax-efficient schemes (salaried staff only, depending on earnings).
• All this as well as fully funded training and career progression opportunities in a team working environment supporting your local community to improve lives through leisure.

Closing date: 27th March 2026
Salary: up to £32,000 per annum

Freedom Leisure is proud to be an equal opportunities employer.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults, and we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.