Active Essex Intern
Fixed Term, Full Time
£25,081 per annum
Location: Chelmsford
Working Style: Anywhere worker
Closing Date: 18th May 2025
About Us:
Are you a looking to become a crucial part of a friendly, welcoming and high achieving team? Active Essex Intern could be the opportunity you are looking for!
Please note this vacancy is available as a fixed term contract or secondment opportunity for up to 12 months.
As an ‘Anywhere Worker’ role, there will be a combination of onsite and remote working. There is an expectation that you will be required to work onsite, in our Active Essex Office, at County Hall, Chelmsford, Essex, 2-3 days each week.
Benefits:
- Healthy work life balance; flexible and hybrid working options.
- Wide range of learning and development opportunities
- IT equipment and home-working equipment provided.
- 26 days annual leave + bank holidays + option to purchase extra.
- Generous Local Government Salary related pension scheme
- Access to hundreds of discounts and benefits through Essex Rewards
- Access to our Health & Wellbeing Platform with Lifeworks
- Two paid days for individual volunteering and two paid days for team volunteering each year.
The Opportunity:
Within the Active Essex Intern roles, you will support the Active Essex team across a range of projects providing, administration, finance, project management and event support to tackle physical inactivity across deprived areas of Essex.
Flexibility within the role is key, with the post holder gaining experience of working within a fast-paced health and wellbeing environment. Contributing to delivering a robust project infrastructure, underpinned by reporting and administration processes; to produce work within timelines, the post holder will gain a detailed knowledge of the work of the Active Essex business.
Delivering across the breath of the operation of the Active Essex programme, the role will include supporting communications, marketing, evaluation, and impact workstreams and tasks, along with working supporting overall organisation, administration, recording of meetings and organising programme events.
A key task, working with the Project Management Office (PMO), Holiday Activity and Food (HAF), Active Essex Foundation (AEF) groups, will be providing day to day support in their operations and administration.
The Role:
Active Essex are looking for 3 Interns for the following roles:
1. x1 Active Essex Intern – Project Management Office (PMO)
2. x1 Active Essex Intern – Holiday Activity and Food (HAF)
3. x1 Active Essex Intern – Active Essex Foundation (AEF)
Active Essex’s work is focused on the delivery of our “Fit for the Future” strategy. As the strategic lead for the sport and physical activity sector we play an important role in the sector, working across our system, with a place-based focus ensuring everyone enjoys the benefits of an active lifestyle.
Project Management Office
The Project Management Officer supports place-based working, Programmes, data collection, reporting, grant funding activities across the Active Essex team.
The role works collaboratively with stakeholders and supports all aspects of Active Essex’s delivery work to enable grant funded outcomes to be met, efficiently delivered, and meet the operational team requirements.
Holiday Activity and Food
In Essex, the holiday activity and food programme is called the Essex ActivAte Programme. The Department for Education has now extended its Holiday Activity Fund through to 2025 and every local authority in the country will provide holiday activity clubs to young people who are eligible for benefits based free school meals for 6 weeks over the Easter, summer and Christmas school holidays 2025.
Active Essex Foundation
The Active Essex Foundation is an independent charity creating the conditions to transform lives through sport and physical activity to:
- Support young people's mental health and emotional wellbeing.
- Reduce vulnerabilities to youth crime and exploitation.
- Strengthen our communities.
You will support Sport for Development Officer and Project teams with administrative tasks and financial processing that relate directly to the charity’s core business aims including managing payments processing, governance compliance checks and database of external partners, and coordinating the sports and life skills referral submissions.
Watch these videos to find out more about Active Essex Projects:
Essex Activate October Half Term
Sport and Youth Crime Prevention Project
Sport and Mental Health Projects
To read more about our business area, please visit People, Policy, Economy and Public Health
What our previous Interns say:
“Being selected for an internship at Active Essex was an incredible opportunity to pursue my career aspirations in the Sport and Physical Activity Sector, combining my love for sport with my passion for health, diversity, and opportunity. During my internship, I supported the Holiday Activities and Food programme and the wider Active Essex teams, engaging in tasks like event planning, administrative duties, visiting delivery partners, and learning about marketing and communications. The welcoming and supportive team helped me grow and progress, celebrating my neurodivergent thinking and allowing me to thrive with autonomy and authenticity. Now, working for the Active Essex Foundation, I recognize that the experiences and support I received during my internship were crucial to my current success.”
"My internship at Active Essex has been an invaluable experience. I have developed so many useful skills—admin, project management, event planning, marketing, and relationship building—that I know will be useful whatever I am doing. The best part has been being able to get involved in big, meaningful projects and knowing I played a role in something that positively impacts communities. The Active Essex team has made this experience so brilliant — they are supportive, welcoming, and just a great bunch to work with. They have made every day enjoyable and helped me grow in ways I didn’t expect. The experience has allowed me to discover a passion for helping communities, and I can’t wait to take that forward in my career."
About You:
- Willingness and aptitude to develop proficiency in the relevant field.
- IT literacy and familiarity with Microsoft Office applications.
- Written communication and interpersonal skills.
- Keen to engage with others and learn from them.
Essential Requirements for the role:
- Applicants educated to A level or equivalent by extensive experience
- Be available for in-person Assessment Centre at Essex Cricket Club, Chelmsford on 5th June 2025
- Be available to commence work from 7th July 2025
Desirable Requirements for the role:
- Ideally educated to RQF level 6 (bachelor’s degree) or equivalent by experience or be studying towards this and completing your studies this academic year.
What will you be doing?
- Undertake any jointly agreed beneficial in-house training.
- Undertaking any suitable tasks (dependent on the nature of the service), supervised by an ECC employee who has responsibility for their delivery, in order to observe and support ECC projects.
- Contributing to the work of the team in order to increase skills, knowledge and experience.
- Responsible for proactively keeping up to date with thinking in the service / profession e.g. attending meetings, reading appropriate publications or researching websites.
- Responsible for identifying and discussing learning needs with their mentor/supervisor and participating in regular reviews.
- Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.
Why Essex?
As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex . With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.
In February 2025 , Greater Essex was accepted onto the Government’s devolution priority programme, which will see local authorities in Essex work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority by May 2026. You can read more about devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR ) on our careers site.
Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.
Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.
At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles , including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.
As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service
Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.
How to apply:
Seize the day! Discover your future as an Active Essex Intern by applying NOW!
*To be considered for this opportunity you must complete the pre-screening questions as part of your application. Applications that are received without this may be rejected.
*Please ensure your CV includes details of how you meet the essential requirements for the role including your Education Level, as we may not be able to consider your application if these details aren’t readily available.
If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community
If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk .
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