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HR Officer Apprentice

Vacancy Reference cofe/TP/89775/9613

Number of Positions:
1
Contract Type:
Employee
Contract Details:
18 month fixed-term contract
Salary/Stipend:
London Living Wage of £14.80 per hour
Working Hours:
35
Location:
Church House, Great Smith Street, London | The Old Brewhouse, Bishopthorpe, York
Closing Date:
05/01/2026
Vacancy Category:
Human Resources and Organisational Development
Business Unit:
National Church Institutions (NCIs)
Organizational Unit:
CofE Central Services

Introduction

Start your HR career by joining our team at the National Church Institutions as an HR Officer Apprentice


About the Department/Role

The Human Resources department provides a strategic and operational HR service to the seven National Church Institutions (NCIs) and the 42 Diocesan Bishops’ offices. Our HR Operations team focusses on the entire employee lifecycle providing support, advice and guidance to senior leaders, line managers and staff. The Organisational Development team lead on culture, values, wellbeing, development, and our belonging & inclusion strategy. Through our External Service team, we also offer HR support on a consultancy basis to other Church of England organisations including our dioceses and cathedrals. 

 

We are a friendly, diverse, well respected, and highly engaged HR team who are committed to actively sharing knowledge and learning across the team and beyond. We encourage flexible working within the team, with hybrid working meaning we work from the office 1 day per week on average. We also regularly meet together online and in-person for collaboration, knowledge-sharing and building relationships within the team. 


What you'll be doing

This is an exciting opportunity for someone with a keen interest in pursuing a career in Human Resources to study a CIPD qualification whilst working in an HR role on a fixed-term basis for 18 months. Working as part of our HR Operations team, you will be involved in providing an outstanding proactive and professional HR service to staff and managers across the National Church Institutions, and other organisations within the Church of England. 

 

In this role, you will be the day-to-day HR contact for NCI Staff, supporting both the HR Operations Manager and HR Business Partners. You will be required to meet staff and be a visible HR presence in our London Office. 


Undertake and complete a Level 3 CIPD HR Apprenticeship and apply learnings and best practice to the role. You will be mentored by a member of the HR team and support will be offered to fulfil the requirements of the Apprenticeship scheme.


Key role requirements:
  • You will need to have excellent verbal and written communication skills, and the ability to work with accuracy and attention to detail, including working with numerical data.
  • You will have an enthusiastic, flexible, and highly organised approach to work, with the ability to understand and process high volumes of information.
  • You will need experience of using Microsoft Word, Outlook and Excel in a work-based context, as well as HR Information Systems (ideally Oracle HCM). SharePoint experience would also be an advantage.
  • This role will require the postholder to work from our London office in Westminster London once a week on average (currently Wednesdays).
  • This is a fixed-term contract for 18 months.

To meet the apprenticeship entry requirements, you will need to have:

  • Academic ability to meet the entry requirements of the Level 3 apprentice course attached to this apprenticeship and to attend and undertake the studying and course work required to complete the course. 
  • Educated to at least GCSE standard, with GCSE grade 4/C or above in Maths and English (or equivalent) or ability to work towards level 2 Maths and English/GCSE 4/C grade.
We appreciate that you may want to use AI tools to help you with your application. We're happy for you to use AI to come up with ideas and help structure your thoughts, but you shouldn't use AI to generate your whole application. One of our values is integrity, and although we want you to demonstrate your best self, we don't want an AI-generated persona. If you rely too much on AI-generated content, this will reduce your chances of success.

About You

The Church of England is for everyone and we want to reflect the diversity of the community the Church serves across the whole country. Therefore, while of course we welcome all applications from interested and suitably experienced people, we would particularly welcome applicants from UK Minoritised Ethnicities (UKME)/Global Majority Heritage (GMH) and other under-represented groups. As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to recruiting disabled people. We offer interviews to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the role.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information about the role and person specification. 

What we offer
Your Salary 
  • The post holder will be paid London Living Wage, currently £14.80 per hour, plus age-related pension contributions between 8-15% of salary. We will also match any pension contributions you make up to an additional 3% of your salary.
Your Benefits
  • 25 days annual leave (increasing to 30 days within 5 years) plus eight bank holidays and three additional days (pro-rated if working part-time).
  • We welcome all flexible working arrangement requests. This is looked at in a case-by-case scenario and if this fits within the department’s needs. We try to be as flexible as we can in your work pattern to support you with other commitments, and to give a good work-life balance.
  • We offer many services and initiatives under our Family Friendly Programme, some of these include enhanced Maternity Leave initiative, Adoption Leave, Paternity Leave, & Shared Parental Leave. Structured induction programme and access to a range of development opportunities including apprenticeships.
  • Automatic enrolment and access to Medicash (one of the UK’s leading health cash plan providers), providing you with many services including reimbursements of routine dental treatment, optical, specialist consultations, and therapy treatments. Unlimited access to virtual GP & Private prescription service and health & Stress related helplines.
  • Access to Occupational Health, and an Employee Assistance Programme 
  • Access to the Department of Education Restaurant and Westminster Abbey with a plus-one guest.
  • Apply for eligibility for an Eyecare voucher.
  • Opportunity to join the Civil Service Sports & Social Club, and get involved in a range of staff networks, groups and societies.

ABOUT NATIONAL CHURCH INSTITUTIONS
The National Church Institutions comprises a wide variety of teams, professions and functions that support the mission and ministries of the Church of England in its vision to be a church, centred on Jesus Christ, for the whole nation - a church that is simpler, humbler, bolder.

We Include. You Belong.
Our Belonging and Inclusion Strategy aims for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.

Living out our values in all that we do, we:
  • Strive for Excellence
  • Show Compassion
  • Respect others
  • Collaborate
  • Act with Integrity
We believe our commitment to belonging and inclusion fuels our progress and drives us forward. The NCIs are a safe, inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We welcome applications from people of all faiths and of no faith. We want to encourage applications from a diverse group of people who share our values.  Even if you have never thought about working for us before, if you have the skills and experience we’re looking for then we would like to hear from you.

Please note: You must have the right to work in the UK to be considered for the role.

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