The Donkey Sanctuary is an international animal welfare organisation, offering care and protection to donkeys worldwide. Our vision is a world where every donkey has a good quality of life, and our mission is to improve the lives of donkeys every day. We will achieve this by transforming the lives of donkeys in need worldwide by fostering greater understanding, collaboration and support, and by promoting lasting, mutually life-enhancing relationships. 

These are exciting times for the charity, and we have an outstanding opportunity for a self-motivated and highly professional individual with exceptional analytical, collaborative and interpersonal skills to join our Leadership Team. As Head of Application Management, you will be responsible for the leadership, strategic direction and effective

delivery of all business applications used across The Donkey Sanctuary, ensuring these are reliable, secure and support our operational and strategic goals. Within this multifunctional and rewarding role, you will lead, support and develop the application management team so they can deliver a high-quality and customer-focused service, fostering a collaborative working culture, encouraging innovation and shared problem-solving.

About you:

• Proven experience of leading application management or enterprise systems teams.
• A strong understanding of ITIL, DevOps, and Agile methodologies.
• Familiarity with SFIA framework and digital transformation principles.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven strategic thinking and decision-making skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Practical experience of managing complex application landscapes and vendor ecosystems.

About the role:

Your principal duties and responsibilities will include –

• Leading the development and delivery of an application management strategy, ensuring it supports the current and future needs of the organisation.
• Establishing clear processes for the full lifecycle of applications, including acquisition, development, maintenance, and retirement.
• Overseeing the performance, availability, and reliability of all business-critical applications, ensuring services run smoothly and efficiently and support business continuity and the delivery of organisational objectives.
• Ensuring effective incident, problem, and change management processes so that application issues are resolved promptly and downtime is minimised.
• Building strong working relationships across The Donkey Sanctuary, acting as the main point of contact for application related advice, priorities and improvement.
• Ensuring applications comply with regulatory requirements, data protection obligations, and security standards.
• Identifying and managing risks related to application services, implementing appropriate controls and mitigation strategies.

What we offer in return:

Based in Sidmouth, East Devon – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – this is a full-time, permanent role starting on 1 October 2026, working 35 hours per week, 08.30-16.30, Monday-Friday.

This is a hybrid working position, combining home and occasional onsite working under our guiding principles for such roles. The working pattern and requirement for site attendance (for essential meetings) will be agreed between the line manager and post-holder.

Benefits:  

Competitive pension.

Life assurance (4 x annual salary).

BUPA private health cover.

Sickness Income Protection (50% of salary)

31 days holiday (including Bank holidays), rising to 34 with each full year of service.

Wellbeing team.

Recorded Pilates and Yoga classes.

Long service awards.

Healthshield plan –

• Reimbursement of. some medical expenses up to the specified limits per membership.
• Offers, discounts and cashback on shopping, travel and entertainment from participating outlets.
• Access to a 24/7 GP and counselling service.

Free parking.

Subsidised restaurant and shop.

Closing date for completed applications: Sunday 2 August 2026.

Please note: We reserve the right to close this vacancy before the advertised date and therefore encourage early applications.

The Donkey Sanctuary is a Disability Confident Employer.

The Donkey Sanctuary is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable people (children and adults), and expects all staff and volunteers to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to safer recruitment processes, including an application for a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check where required for the post.

The Donkey Sanctuary also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, for relevant posts, may request information from applicants' previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment.

Please note: The Guaranteed interview scheme is only applicable to candidates who consider themselves to have a disability applying for roles based within the United Kingdom.

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: We look forward to receiving your application, but we do ask you to complete this in your own words, and not to employ an Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tool or assistant. Applications that are considered not to be an applicant's own work may not be shortlisted for interview.

Before submitting your application, please ensure you read our candidate journey page, in particular our FAQs section – https://jobs.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/jobs/candidate-journey/