Chief Executive Officer

About The Role

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

NHS Professionals (NHSP) is the largest NHS flexible staff bank, placing highly skilled temporary workers in NHS trusts and healthcare organisations to meet short, medium and long‑term staffing needs.

This is a rare opportunity to lead a nationally significant organisation at the intersection of NHS workforce, technology and public service reform.

Originally formed in 2001, NHS Professionals is a multi‑award‑winning business that has delivered over 40 million hours of patient care and 5 million shifts throughout last year, working with 140+ NHS Trusts and healthcare organisations across the country.

Working in partnership with NHS trust clients, NHSP provides a service that combines a deep understanding of each trust’s temporary and flexible workforce requirements with the reliability, quality and value for money of a fully managed service. With a strong track record and trusted national presence, we are well placed to respond to an evolving marketplace—harnessing technology, supporting trusts through transformation, and playing an even greater role in addressing workforce pressures.

The CEO will build on strong foundations—commercial growth, national scale and proven cost savings—to scale the flexible workforce model, accelerate digital workforce solutions and strengthen NHSP’s role in delivering the long‑term workforce strategy, and driving systemic value for money.

The role requires a bold commercial leader who can operate confidently across government, the NHS and commercial markets, balancing policy alignment with delivery, at pace, and with an unwavering commitment to social purpose and service excellence.

Location: Our working arrangements are hybrid, and you can be based anywhere in the UK. You will be expected to travel as part of your role with frequent stakeholder meetings in London.

Key Information

Closing date for applications: Friday 15th May 2026

Successful candidates will be invited to preliminary interviews with Odgers, followed by a shortlist meeting and final stage interviews.

About The Candidate

To be successful in this post you will need to demonstrate:

Essential Criteria

• Masters degree level or equivalent professional qualifications and /or work experience
• Proven CEO or senior executive leadership experience in a complex, multi‑stakeholder environment
• Strong track record of delivering commercial growth and operational performance
• Experience leading datadriven, digitally enabled operating models that improve workforce deployment, insight and decision making at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to balance pace of delivery with public service governance and scrutiny.
• Strategic vision and the ability to align initiatives, business objectives and long‑term goals
• Proven commercial judgement underpinned by a strong grasp of financial management, affordability controls, transparency and assurance requirements
• Highly credible stakeholder leader—able to influence at Board and government level
• Values led leadership consistent with NHS and public sector principles.
• Collaborative and politically astute with the ability to lead through ambiguity and complexity
• Agile, adaptable, and outcomes‑focused
• Compelling public speaker and ability to network in the market and balance competitive risks and opportunities
• Resilience and judgement to operate under sustained political, media and stakeholder scrutiny.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of staffing/ recruitment industry
• Experience of healthcare
• Experience of Government landscape and an understanding of policy implications

Benefits

• Generous annual leave allowance – 27 days per year, plus bank holidays
• Commitment to talent management & development
• Values Star of the Month – recognise colleagues or teams, award worth £100 worth of shopping vouchers
• Pension – we’ll contribute up to 10% towards your pension if you join our stakeholder pension scheme
• Life Assurance
• Group Income Protection
• Wellbeing Programme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Employee Engagement & discounts platform

We are an inclusive employer of choice, fully committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. NHS Professionals is a signatory of the Disability Confident scheme, the Menopause Pledge and the Mental Health at Work Commitment, and we are awarded the Race Equality Code Quality Mark.

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