Basic information
Hours: 3-5 days per week (37.5 hours pro rata), subject to discussion
Pay: £28,480 (pro rata), with pay rises expected
Terms: Permanent contract, subject to a probationary period of 3 months
Start: Ideally 1st July 2025, but flexible, based on notice needed
Location: Remote working primarily, but in-person workshops and meetings require regular commuting to Sheffield, UK
Applications must be received by: 30th April 2025
Interviews: We anticipate the recruitment process consisting of shortlisting and two rounds of interviews starting in the week commencing the 12th of May 2025.
Background and invitation
This role is centred around the smooth running of Opus’s day-to-day operations. This involves supporting and helping to maintain all the nuts and bolts of our projects, all the ‘on the groundwork’, as well as how the projects interact with each other and how the company functions as a whole.
While the person in this role would not be expected to work directly on company strategy unless they wanted to, they would need to have a firm understanding of it and be able to work through its implications for the work Opus is doing day-to-day.
What is Opus?
Opus is a worker-owned social enterprise with the aim of finding systemic responses to society’s most complex problems. We're based in Sheffield, northern England. Since 2008, we've hosted projects in the city that further the conversation around issues like poverty, inequality and climate breakdown.
Our work recognises that the problems faced by our city, the UK and the wider world are complex and intersecting. We can't solve these problems one at a time – that's why we're involved in dozens of different projects seeking to make change in areas such as climate, poverty and marginalisation.
We believe that tweaks and improvements to existing systems will not work. This is because existing systems are often part of the problem, are fundamentally flawed or are themselves at real risk of collapse. We, therefore, need to build new systems together at a speed and scale that matches the severity of the various crises we are facing.
Instead of radical reforms to fundamentally flawed systems, our work focuses on emerging futures – new systems based on equity, justice and staying within our planetary boundaries. We think big because we have no other option.
The mission
Opus is a mission-led organisation. We aim to explore and further systemic change as part of a just transition, not to make a profit or to tinker with existing systems. By working here, you’ll become part of what we’re building together.
The work is not ‘yours’ or ‘ours’, but part of a collective endeavour grounded in a shared purpose. Working at Opus is fundamentally relational, not transactional. This means that we will shape the role together as the organisation changes and evolves.
Like all roles at Opus, this role is an invitation to actively participate in defining the work, the strategy and the systems we’re building. It’s an invitation to take shared ownership of the mission and to co-create something fundamentally transformative.
While we’re always happy when people bring new strengths and perspectives to our team, we’re equally looking for those who can engage in mutual learning and adaptive collaboration, responding dynamically to the mission’s evolving needs.
We don’t have all the answers – and that’s okay. Our worker-owned structure makes it easier for us to learn, grow and adapt as a collective and ‘sense into’ the work and what’s required of us as we go along. This way, we can build beautiful things together during urgent times.
The role
Broad responsibilities include:
Maintaining a working knowledge of activity in different workstreams and checking in with leads in these workstreams to ensure they’re on course (for example; the Wellbeing Lead, the Communications Leads and the Finance Lead).
Having a broad overview of work going on in different workstreams, so as to be able to spot opportunities, gaps, problems, potential conflicts, and to be able to pick anything up that ‘falls through the cracks’.
Ensuring that different workstreams are functioning properly and have sufficient capacity and resources, and flagging when this isn’t the case.
Ensuring that different workstreams are interacting with each other appropriately and effectively (for example, making sure that Opus Productions is aware of what’s happening in the Demonstrators portfolio).
Attending Directors' meetings and making sure decisions at these meetings are implemented.
Looking after company-wide matters, like formation and implementation of new policies and working practices, coordinating away days and other important company-wide matters as identified by Directors and members.
Working with the Finance Coordinator and having a fairly detailed knowledge of the company’s finances, in particular relating to long-term finance, finance strategy and in-progress funding bids.
An ‘information and knowledge management’ role, making sure that the information and resources used by people across the company are easily accessible and kept up-to-date and well-ordered (for example, on the existing Opus Intranet).
Specific tasks that could illustrate the role include (but are not limited to):
Keeping track of all the funding bids that people are applying for across the company, what the deadlines are for these, who is responsible for them, and making sure they’re submitted on time.
Creating spaces for learning conversations, and tracking learning and development across the organisation.
Maintaining a broad understanding of company-wide project work and critical time-sensitive tasks, providing support to teams where needed to meet deadlines and ensuring good communication and information sharing to enable this.
Maintaining and renewing company accounts for things – ranging from Zoom to parking permits for the office – and researching potential better ways of working.
Organising various team meetings, and supporting the Chair of the Board with full Opus board meetings.
Being aware and keeping track of the delivery of company-wide projects being led on by other colleagues, providing support for their completion, and updating the wider team and Directors on progress and barriers.
Monitoring and managing company-wide communications channels (for example, the info@ email inbox) and ensuring that communications are passed on to the right people.
Reviewing and updating company policies and strategies, and taking shared responsibility for their implementation and visibility to others.
Making sure that the most up-to-date versions of policies and documents are maintained and available on the company intranet and Google Drive, and that information that is no longer relevant or needed is deleted or archived.
Managing recruitment processes (while working with other colleagues) and taking a role in onboarding new team members.
Working with the Financial Coordinator and Directors to build organisational foundations and anticipate organisational risk, such as capacity gaps in workstreams, funding gaps, rate of investment in certain areas and supporting the governance structure to ensure efficiency in our processes.
Employee benefits
We are a uniquely talented, highly diverse and passionate team engaging with complex and stimulating projects.
We are an organisation which provides the platform to make an impact from day one.
We offer a highly collaborative and open-ended environment where you have the space to shape your work and develop your personal and professional skills.
You will have opportunities to develop your connections and skills through our large network and in-house training opportunities.
We offer flexible working, so you will be able to choose your working days and agree a split of remote and some in-person working with Directors.
In addition to your regular annual leave allowance (28 days for full-time roles, pro rata), you will also receive bonus annual leave from 24th December to 1st January inclusive, every year.
If, for any reason, you are unable to take your full quota of annual leave in a year, you will be able to carry up to 3 days into the following year.
We offer a £26 monthly contribution for working-from-home support and phone bill coverage during working hours.
Further information
Read our annual report for 2024
Find more information about all our different projects
About Opus
Opus is a not-for-profit social enterprise based in Sheffield, established in 2008. Our projects include Now Then Magazine, Festival of Debate, Opus Distribution and UBI Lab Network.
Opus works to contribute upstream solutions to complex system problems. We do this through strategic partnerships, engaging arts and culture, research, identifying leverage points, and co-creation. We incubate and deploy services, projects, platforms, decentralised networks, and movements that are proportionate to the challenges ahead.
Opus is multidisciplinary, cross-sector and adaptive, working across hyper-local, regional, national and international contexts. We work with citizens, communities, neighbourhoods, businesses, voluntary groups, cities, campaigns, research institutions, infrastructure organisations and governments to address the entangled ecological, social, economic, political and cultural crisis we collectively face.
We recognise that this is a long-term and systemic approach to social change. There are no easy fixes and few quick wins, so we spend our time and energy creating the space – whether that’s a platform, a network or something else – for new ideas to emerge and develop.
Opus reaches more than 150,000 people annually through live events, broadcasting and publishing in Sheffield and beyond.
Pay rates
Our current full-time salary at Opus is £28,480. All Opus employees, including the company’s Directors, are paid the same. We have listed a salary range for this role because we anticipate bringing in a significant pay rise for all staff in 2025.
As a worker-controlled company, everyone gets a say on when and by how much we increase our pay. Whenever we raise wages, we do so for everyone who works at the company.
How To Apply
Please email your CV and a cover letter, explaining why you are suited to this role, to info@weareopus.org by 30th April 2025.
The cover letter should be no longer than one side of A4. You are welcome to submit it in another format, for example as a voice note or a video recording.
If your application is successful, you will need to provide two professional references.
If your application is successful, you will not need to undergo a health check before starting work.
Your data will be stored in accordance with GDPR regulations.
The law requires us to ensure that you demonstrate that you have the right to work in the UK.
Diversity and equal opportunities
Diversity in our workforce is a priority for Opus. As well as the clear moral imperative of properly reflecting our home city of Sheffield and its many communities, diversity in our team improves how we work, how we ‘frame’ problems and their possible solutions, and how we interact with stakeholders and audiences.
We particularly encourage applications from groups that are under-represented. This includes but is not limited to people of global majority descent (i.e. people of African, Asian, Indigenous, Latin American, Middle Eastern/Arab, Polynesian/Pacific Islander, or mixed race heritage), disabled people, those who identify as LGBTQI+ and individuals from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.