Principal Social Worker - PermanentThis is a Gloucestershire County Council job. Job Title: Principal Social WorkerJob Location: Quayside House, Gloucester Salary: £61,174 - £66,223 per annum Hours per Week: 37.00 Contract Type: Permanent Closing Date: 09/03/2025 Job Requisition Number: 10709 This post is open to job share Are you ready to become our next Principal Social Worker? We are looking for an ambitious and experienced social work qualified leader, ready to play a central role in Gloucestershire’s journey to offering good and outstanding services. If you are looking for a new challenge and share our vision and values then we would love to hear from you! About the role: Our newly developed Principal Social Worker post places this role at the heart of our children’s services improvement journey. Building on our work to date, you will lead and develop practice across the authority to achieve our ambition to offer good or outstanding support to all the children and families that we work with. You will lead our innovative Academy and continue our implementation of systemic practice, ensuring that practitioners are clear about what this means and are embodying this approach. You will also be responsible for ensuring an excellent workforce development offer, leading changes within the Social Work Academy to enhance its reach and remit. You will drive forward our ambition to put the voices and experiences of children, young people and their families at the heart of everything that we do, ensuring our practice standards are embedded across the authority. Representing the voices of practitioners, this post will play a key role in building collaborative relationships across the authority, acting as a bridge to senior managers and ensuring that leaders are creating the conditions that allow social work practice to thrive. You will have opportunities to be creative, challenging and innovative as you lead and deliver new projects, developments and service improvements. You will be an inspirational leader, able to engage, motivate and inspire colleagues and partners in their work with children and families. About us: Enchanting Cotswold villages, picturesque countryside backdrops, and a never-ending selection of exciting days out, attractions and events; Gloucestershire really does have something for everyone. Gloucestershire is the perfect place to live and work with a great mix of rural and city locations. Find out more about living and working in Gloucestershire. This is a fantastic opportunity to join Gloucestershire County Council. You can be confident of becoming part of a welcoming, passionate, innovative, and highly supportive team. About you: Our values are at the heart of everything we do and how we treat each other. They provide essential guiding principles about the way that we work and set the tone for our culture, and identify what we, as an organisation, care about. Read more about our values on our website. As our Principal Social Worker, you will need to embody these values in everything that you do, acting as a role model for practitioners and holding others to account. In Gloucestershire, we believe that our relationship with children and families is the basis of our intervention and are passionate about working in a way that promotes sustainable change. If you share our commitment to working with children and families in this way, then we want to hear from you! In exchange for your commitment and enthusiasm, we will provide you with full training and support to enable you to succeed in your role. Please note you must hold a full driving licence and have the willingness to drive (exceptions under the Equality Act may apply) Reward and supportFor all your hard work, you will receive the following:• between £61,174 - £66,223 per annum subject to experience• flexible and agile working opportunities • 30.5 days annual leave • option to purchase 10 days of additional leave per year (pro rata for part-time staff)• family friendly policies and benefits to help support you and your family • supportive and positive working environment with regular, robust supervision• local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) • access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) that provides free, confidential, counselling and advice for employees, available 24 hours a day, online and by telephone• an in-house Occupational Health service • employee discount scheme • cycle to work scheme• links to employee networks such as Prism (LGBT+) and the Young Employees Network• career development and qualification opportunities • access to our Social Work Academy We’re closer than you think: We are an easy commute from many locations, view our commuting times map to see what we mean. However, we understand that commuting isn’t for everyone, so if you are in the process of relocating, why not email us to discuss opportunities further. * For interested professionals located in Wales and Scotland, please contact us to discuss your application. Applying: If you are interested in applying please do so by 9th March or alternatively if you have any questions please email Ceri.Woszczyk@gloucestershire.gov.uk. Interview date: 27th March 2025 Additional InformationTo access the Job Profile for this role, please follow the link below:-Principal Social Worker Role ProfileThis position is subject to a DBS check. Gloucestershire County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people or vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.We want to be an employer of choice, attracting and retaining excellent people to work for us, so that we can best serve all of Gloucestershire’s diverse communities. Our promise to you is that we will provide an inclusive and supportive working environment that enables you to bring your whole self to work and realise your full potential.It is a legal requirement, under the Immigration Act 2016, that anyone appointed to a ‘customer facing role’ must be able to demonstrate an ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in fluent English.Hybrid working arrangements are available for the majority of our roles, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice, with a mix of both remote and office working.