Grade A - £55,172 (National) or £61,028 (London - for London office based or home-based workers within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £600 per annum for those working from home. Please note for part time roles – this will be pro rata.
Contracted Hours: Full time 37 hours per week.
Contract Type: Secondment/FTC until 31 December 2026
Location: Home-based – South East
*This role requires regular travel across the South East network as needed for meetings and engagement activities. Applicants must be willing and able to travel within this area. For this reason, we are seeking candidates who live within the specified region. Location will be carefully considered to ensure the role and responsibilities remain manageable.
Closing date: Thursday 23 April 2026 at 11:59pm
Make a difference
Every role at CQC supports our mission to make sure health and care services are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. If you’re looking for a new role in Primary & Community Care that gives you a real sense of meaning and purpose, then you’ve found it.
As an Interim Operations Manager, you’ll help ensure people receive safe, high quality care by leading assessment activity and supporting teams to make fair, informed regulatory decisions.
Picture this
Imagine leading a team of inspectors who are out in communities every day, checking on services that people rely on most. You help guide decisions, respond to risks and make sure we act quickly when people’s safety matters most.
In the last year as an Operations Manager in Primary & Community Care you might have:
- Led a focused piece of work to manage emerging risks across a group of providers, using data and insight to guide activity and protect people using services.
- Worked with Senior Specialists to coordinate a complex, high risk assessment bringing the right expertise together to reach a clear regulatory outcome.
The role
You’ll work closely with others to deliver shared outcomes. In this role, you’ll:
- Lead assessment activity: Oversee end to end assessments, ensuring your team has what they need to make fair, consistent and timely regulatory decisions.
- Manage risk and resources: Use data, insight and specialist advice to spot risks early, make balanced decisions, and support safe delivery across your patch.
- Support and develop people: Line manage inspectors, provide coaching, and help colleagues grow their skills while upholding CQC values and inclusive behaviours.
Show us
We will be looking for specific skills, knowledge and experience in your application form. Please clearly evidence:
- Experience leading operational delivery, including managing workloads, solving problems, and making sound decisions using a mix of data, insight and professional judgement.
- Experience guiding and supporting others, such as coaching colleagues, helping teams understand regulatory expectations, or leading people through complex or changing work.
- Experience working with internal and external stakeholders, building relationships that support shared outcomes, consistency and high quality regulatory activity.
Join us at CQC and grow your career in an organisation that values learning, collaboration and meaning. Apply today to join a workplace where your impact is felt every day.
Note for internal candidates:
This is a secondment/fixed term opportunity. Please read the recruitment and selection policy section on secondments. You must discuss your application with your line manager before applying.
Next steps
If you apply, you’ll need to create a profile and complete an online application form. Your application will be completely anonymous. Please see our information for applicants for more details on the process. We contact every applicant to let them know the outcome of their application, so you will hear from us whether or not you are shortlisted.
You can read the full details of the role in the Job Description.
If you’d like an informal chat about the role contact – Joe Culleton, Deputy Director of Primary and Community Care at
[email protected]
The Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including:
- Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
- Training and development opportunities.
- Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
- NHS pension scheme, with around 14% employer contribution.
- Discount schemes (including eligibility for a Blue Light card, at a cost of £4.99 and valid for 2 years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!
Please see our benefits page for the full list.
Equity for all
We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they’re a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.
We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we’ll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you’d like to chat, please contact
[email protected]. Please note, if you have previously informed us of adjustments you need for interview or within your role these are not carried over and must be discussed for each individual application you make.
We promote a workplace where fairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. Diverse teams make our work better, help us deliver our mission and make our culture stronger. See our ED&I page for more about this.
We welcome applications from everyone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:
- Age
- Sex
- Gender identity or expression
- Sexual orientation
- Religion or belief
- Ethnicity
- Disability
Values and vision
We are guided by our core values, which shape our work and our culture.
Excellence – being a high-performing organisation.
Caring – treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Integrity – doing the right thing.
Teamwork – learning from each other to be the best we can.
We are a disability confident employer and a carer confident employer.
A Note on AI
AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:
- AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your application must reflect your real skills and experience.
- Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
- Do not copy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember we want to hear about your skills and experience.
- Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity and may lead to your application being withdrawn or termination of your employment.