Early Years and Childcare Advisor - Quality and Sufficiency

The Opportunity

Salary: NJC Grade 10 £41,177 to £44,253 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: 37 hours per week, full time, Monday to Friday

Location: Chichester or Horsham

Closing date: 18 September 2026

Interview date: 01 and 02 October 2026

Are you passionate about supporting young children to have the best start in life?

Do you have experience leading early years and childcare practice?

If you enjoy creative solutions and sharing your ideas, we would love to hear from you.

As an Early Years and Childcare Advisor for Quality and Sufficiency, you will support early years and childcare settings to deliver sustainable, high quality, inclusive practice. Your focus will be to support providers across West Sussex to sustainably meet the provision needs of children and their families. This is crucial to ensuring young children have the best start in life and identifying additional support through inclusive practice.

You will collaborate and work in partnership with colleagues and a range of organisations, such as early years settings, childminders and out of school provision, to support every child to achieve their full potential.

This role is varied, and the Early Years team are supportive and passionate about ensuring children receive the best experience in early years and childcare, enabling families to have access to childcare for 0–14-year-olds (or up to 18 for children with a disability).

Key responsibilities of this role include:

• Reviewing the sufficiency of childcare places and providing business support.
• Compliance of the Early Years Funded Entitlement and other funding streams.
• Supporting early years settings to provide a high quality, inclusive environment for children.
• Supporting early years settings to identify and support children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), as well as other vulnerabilities.
• Developing effective professional relationships with providers and customers.
• Observing and modelling practice to staff in early years and childcare settings.
• Keeping up to date with research, safeguarding, regulations, policies, practices, and procedures.

For more information on the Responsibilities of the role, Key Skills, Qualifications and/or Experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

About You

As an EYCA, you will need a high level of professional knowledge as well as significant experience of working within the early years and childcare sector.

We are looking for someone who has clear communication skills to offer advice and guidance, and who can adapt and re-prioritise work in response to changes. You will spend a significant amount of time working away from colleagues, so you will need to be organised and self-motivated.

Please refer to the key skills in your cover letter as these will be used for shortlisting criteria.

Key Skills:

1. Excellent communication skills to provide specialist advice and guidance, through challenge and support, focussing on impact and outcomes.
2. Ability to adapt to changing situations in a measured and flexible manner to adapt the advice, guidance or support to suit individual and changing circumstances.
3. Ability to work with a wide range of learning styles and levels of experience, demonstrating tact, diplomacy and empathy as required with a focus on improved outcomes for children.
4. Ability to contribute ideas and creative solutions to support the delivery of initiatives, contingencies or other requirements of the service.
5. Ability to work with other service professionals to share best practice, knowledge and learning to drive forward improvement.
6. A level of IT skills that will enable you to effectively and efficiently use a range of tools to complete work tasks, including using spreadsheets, databases and maintaining data accuracy and confidentiality.
7. Excellent time management and personal organisation skills to organise own workload and meet deadlines.

Qualifications and/or experience required:

• Degree level qualification in a relevant field.
• Qualified Teacher Status with Early Years Specialism, Early Years Professional Status, Early Years Teacher Status or Level 6 Play Work qualification.
• Significant experience working in the early years and childcare sector.
• Experience of leading change by applying specialist knowledge and providing advice, guidance, and challenge to other professionals.
• Experience of leading early years and childcare practice.
• Evidence of working alongside a range of professionals, working collaboratively to achieve a common goal.
• Evidence of the use of data, to identify and prioritise developments and projects to improve outcome for children. For example, assessment data.
• Experience of working with childminders and the out of school sector.

About Us

Early Years and Childcare Advisors (EYCAs) work within the Children, Young People and Learning directorate, which groups all services including Early Help, Children’s Social Care and Education and Skills, that work together to put children first and improve outcomes for children and families across West Sussex.

Our Vision is: “From birth every child is nurtured, supported, and given the opportunity to develop well and achieve their full potential in inclusive, safe, inspiring environments. The voice and needs of children and their families is sought and acted upon with holistic needs being identified early and effectively met, enabling children and families to be healthy and thrive.”

Benefits

As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance, and are rewarded for the work they do.

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including the following:

Employer Pension Contribution: 15% (this alters per annum on the 1 April each year)

Annual leave: 27 days holiday + Bank Holidays = 35days

How to Apply

The reference number for this role is CAFHE06499.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Sue Woods (Early Years Team Manager – Quality Improvement) at sue.woods@westsussex.gov.uk.

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter.

In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV.

Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

Safeguarding statement

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

This post is subject to QTS check, an enhanced DBS check, five years referencing, and an occupational health check.

Equity, inclusion, and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application helppage.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact Natalie Greene, Recruitment Specialist, at Natalie.Greene@westsussex.gov.uk