Learning Facilitator & Client Consultant

Company: Common Purpose
Location: Home-based in the UK – London, Manchester or Leeds - with regular travel across the UK and internationally as required.
Salary: £38,000 - £43,000 per annum, depending on experience
Contract: Permanent, full-time
Working pattern: We offer a fully flexible working environment
Annual leave: 25 days of annual leave per annum, plus 3 additional days over Christmas
Additional Benefits: Comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
The role
We are looking for an experienced Learning Facilitator & Client Consultant to join the Common Purpose team.
This is a role for someone who loves people, ideas and learning, and who can work with a client to understand what they need, help shape the right learning experience, facilitate it brilliantly, and connect what happens in the programme to what needs to change afterwards.
Our programmes are experiential. Participants learn by encountering different people and perspectives, exploring real situations, having conversations that may challenge their assumptions, reflecting and reframing based on what they have experienced, and considering what it means for them and their organisation. You will be involved across that journey: from understanding the client and shaping the design, through to creating the conditions for powerful learning and helping participants and clients translate that learning into practice.
The facilitator is at the heart of making that learning happen. But this is not simply a delivery role.
You will need more than strong presentation or group-management skills. You will need to understand how people learn, how to design meaningful experiences, and how to turn those experiences into insight and action. You will need to be comfortable exploring a client's learning need, contributing to programme design, working with colleagues and clients to shape an experience, and identifying what will make the programme valuable beyond the room.
You will also need to know when to provide structure and when to get out of the way; when to challenge and when to listen; when a group needs energy and when it needs space to think. And you will need to stay curious about what happens after the programme - what participants do differently, what clients need to see change, and how our work can contribute to that.
You will work with an extraordinary range of people — from young professionals to senior leaders and C-suite executives — across different sectors, generations, cultures and contexts. You will need to connect quickly with all of them, while being equally confident in a conversation about a client's needs, a programme design, or the impact we are trying to achieve.
One day you might be helping a client make sense of a complex organisational challenge and shaping an experience around it. The next, you might be facilitating a conversation between people who have never met. Another day might involve an immersive experience outside the classroom, followed by a conversation that helps participants understand what they have seen, what it means for their own practice and what they will do differently as a result.
You will bring the personality to connect with people, the facilitation craft to hold a room, the learning and design expertise to create meaningful experiences, and the client consultancy skills to connect those experiences to real organisational needs and impact.
What you’ll be doing
Working with clients to understand their learning needs – asking the right questions, challenging assumptions where appropriate and translating organisational needs into meaningful learning experiences
Contributing to learning design and proposals, helping shape programme journeys, learning objectives, activities and approaches that respond to client needs
Designing and curating learning experiences – shaping programme journeys and identifying the ideas, perspectives, organisations, places and contributors that will make them distinctive and purposeful
Sourcing and working with contributors – building relationships with interesting people and organisations, briefing them effectively and drawing out their contribution before, during and after programmes
Contributing confidently to client pitches - explaining the thinking behind our approach and helping clients understand how experiential learning can address their needs
Facilitating Common Purpose programmes - both in person and online, taking ownership of the quality of the learning experience
Creating the conditions for experiential learning – building trust, encouraging participation and creating the right balance of safety, challenge and curiosity
Bringing learning to life - through questioning, discussion, activities, reflection and interaction with expert subject matter contributors
Reading and responding to the room - adapting activities, pace, questions and approach according to what the group needs
Preparing, reviewing and improving delivery – developing facilitation plans and materials, contributing to team briefings and debriefs, and sharing learning and practice with colleagues
What you’ll bring
We are looking for someone who combines excellent facilitation skills with a strong understanding of how people learn.
You will be a confident and experienced facilitator, but you will also be curious about what makes a learning experience work. You will understand that great facilitation is not about delivering content; it is about designing and creating the conditions in which people can learn through experience, reflection, conversation and challenge.
You will bring:
Strong facilitation experience – ideally five years or more of facilitating groups, learning experiences or programmes
Understanding of experiential learning and pedagogy – you know how people learn through experience, reflection, dialogue, challenge and application
Learning design capability – you can see how individual experiences and activities contribute to a wider learning journey and can design with the participant experience in mind
Learning consultancy skills – you are comfortable exploring a client’s needs, asking probing questions, challenging a brief and helping shape the problem before jumping to a solution
Client confidence – you are comfortable presenting ideas, contributing to pitches and speaking credibly with clients and senior stakeholders
Energy, curiosity and external orientation –
you are naturally interested in people, ideas and the world around you, and enjoy discovering perspectives and experiences that bring learning to life
Strong interpersonal and group skills – you can read a room, listen well, ask powerful questions and bring different voices into the conversation
Confidence with challenge and complexity – you can facilitate difficult conversations, navigate difference and create productive discomfort without losing trust
Adaptability and judgement – you can work with a plan while knowing when to change it, improvise or take a conversation somewhere unexpected
A reflective approach to your own practice – you actively seek feedback, learn from experience and are interested in continually improving how you facilitate, design and consult
All applicants must also
Have excellent written English, oral communication and interpersonal skills
Be confident facilitating both in person and online
Be comfortable working independently while also contributing actively to a collaborative team
Be able to manage a varied workload, multiple programmes and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
Be willing and able to travel within the Uk and globally for programme delivery, including occasional early mornings, evenings and short periods away from home
Be confident and proficient in the use of Microsoft Office, Zoom and other digital collaboration tools
Be committed to Common Purpose ’s independent and non-aligned approach to programme experiences
Be able to demonstrate your facilitation experience. This might include examples of programmes you have facilit