Operations Manager

• Employment type: Full time

• Reporting to: Chief Financial & Operating Officer

• Visa sponsorship: UK national or visa holder preferred, but not a dealbreaker

• Salary: £55,000 - £75,000

• Location / working pattern: Hybrid, London - 3 days a week in office

• Background checks: Due to the non-partisan nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history, and right to work. To ensure we maintain high standards of political neutrality, we also perform media and social media checks.
  

About Apolitical

Apolitical's mission is to make governments smarter for people and the planet and we reach over 40 million public servants through our partnerships with governments globally. We are the largest global network for governments, used by 500,000+ public servants in 170 countries to find and share best practices and gain skills on critical topics from AI to climate change to emerging technologies.

Governments use Apolitical to solve public sector transformation challenges from AI augmentation to reskilling. We offer governments five interoperable components: research and analysis, workforce productivity tools, customisable training, vibrant learning communities and high impact convenings. Everything we do is powered by our unique global network and real-time data.

The Role

Apolitical operates entities in the UK, the US, the UAE and Ireland, and our work with governments keeps growing across them. Our priority now is making the operations behind that work run well: every entity in good standing, finance that runs cleanly and a planning rhythm that keeps the organisation focused.

Operations covers entity administration and governance, systems and suppliers, planning and financial operations. Getting these right protects the credibility governments and partners expect of us, and frees our teams to focus on the work itself.

As an Operations Manager, you will take ownership of the corporate housekeeping, planning rhythm and financial operations that keep Apolitical running across all our entities. Your immediate mandate is to take over the compliance calendar and entity filings, coordinate the next planning cycle with the executive team and own month-end coordination with our external accountants.

This is a hands-on role with no direct reports, and we're hiring at Mid-level or Senior, depending on experience. You will work closely with the executive team, Risk and Compliance, Commercial, and our external accountants and advisers.

You will:

• Keep our entities in good standing – manage the compliance calendar, filings, company secretarial work, business and tax registrations and health and safety across every entity, involving Risk and Compliance on questions of interpretation.

• Run our planning and operating rhythm – coordinate goal-setting and the planning cycle with the executive team, maintain planning reviews, decision records and reporting, including annual reporting, and lead improvements to how teams work together.

• Run financial operations – coordinate payables, receivables, month-end and year-end with our external accountants, manage expenses and company cards, and support the Chief Financial & Operating Officer on finance projects.

• Manage suppliers and advisers – set clear expectations, brief advisers precisely and review service, subscriptions and renewals for value before they roll over.

• Run and improve operational systems – administer systems, access and devices for joiners and leavers, manage credentials in line with our security policy, keep operational policies and documentation current and automate repetitive processes.

• Keep us ready to operate as activity grows – track tax and registration thresholds across our entities, and coordinate employer registrations, employment providers and any set-up needed when we hire or work somewhere new.

Onboarding Milestones

Within your first month, you'll:

• Develop a working understanding of our entities, their obligations and the advisers and suppliers who support them.

• Review the compliance calendar, planning cycle and month-end process, and agree priorities with the Chief Financial & Operating Officer.

• Establish working relationships with the executive team, Risk and Compliance and our external accountants, and take ownership of upcoming filings and renewals.

Within three months, you'll:

• Be running the compliance calendar and entity filings across all our entities.

• Have coordinated a full planning and reporting cycle with the executive team.

• Be coordinating month-end with our external accountants and managing supplier and adviser renewals.

Within six months, you'll:

• Be running entity administration and financial operations independently, escalating only material risk.

• Have a current view of tax and registration thresholds across our entities, with actions in hand before any is reached.

• Have improved at least one recurring operational process, using automation where it helps.

About you

We care more about how you think and work than where you've done it before. The skills that matter most here are sound judgement about obligations and risk, the discipline to keep many moving parts on track, and the instinct to make a process simpler every time you run it.

You'll thrive here if you:

• Build the systems and processes you wish existed, rather than working around the ones you inherit.

• Measure your success by how much easier you make other people's work, from the executive team to Commercial.

• Work well with high trust and autonomy, and stay steady when priorities shift or a deadline lands unexpectedly.

• Think sharply about risk and trade-offs, and can explain a complex obligation in a few clear sentences.

• Care about getting the detail right, because you know what's at stake for an organisation that governments trust.

• Reach for AI and automation first when a task repeats, and share what you learn so others can do the same.

• Say what you think in the open, challenge plans that won't work and welcome the same challenge in return.

Show us in your CV if you have:

• Experience with company secretarial work or entity administration across more than one jurisdiction.

• Experience with business or tax registrations, or employment providers, in more than one country.

• Experience coordinating month-end or year-end with external accountants.

Don't meet every requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for roles unless they meet every qualification. We're committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, so if you're interested in the role but don't tick every box, we'd still encourage you to apply.

This probably isn't the role for you if…

• You're seeking a role that sets compliance policy or interprets regulation; that sits with Risk and Compliance, and this role puts it into practice.

• You prefer to specialise in one area rather than move between governance, finance, suppliers and planning in the same week.

• You're looking to manage a team rather than personally own a broad operational remit.

Our application process

We use skills-based assessments and structured interviews to focus on what predicts success in the role. Each stage is designed to give us high-quality evidence of your skills, judgement and ways of working, while giving you a clear view of the role, the team and what working at Apolitical is like.

You can see more about the stages of our hiring process on our careers page.

You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by 6th November 2026.

Using AI in your application

We embrace new technologies and encourage the use of AI in our work.

You're welcome to use AI tools to help structure and refine your application. What matters to us, though, is understanding your thinking, experience and perspective, so please make sure your application still sounds like you.