Community Sports Development Officer

Community sports development officers design, deliver, and develop initiatives that increase participation in sport and physical activity — particularly among underrepresented and inactive groups. Employers include local authority sports and leisure services, national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) such as Sport England's funded partners, Community Sport Trusts attached to professional football clubs, and national charities such as StreetGames, Active Partners, and Sporting Equals.

Work involves identifying target communities (e.g. women and girls, older adults, disabled people, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, people in low-income areas), designing and piloting new participation programmes, building partnerships with schools, community organisations, health services, and housing providers, and managing sport coaches and casual delivery staff. Project management, grant management (many posts are funded via Sport England's Uniting the Movement strategy or National Lottery Community Fund), stakeholder engagement, and impact reporting are all regular activities.

The National Governing Body relationship is significant: development officers work with NGBs to implement their Whole Sport Plans and Club Matters programmes, supporting clubs to become more welcoming, accessible, and sustainable. Knowledge of the NGB's safeguarding, coaching qualification requirements, and insurance frameworks is essential. Community coaching and facilitation may be part of the role alongside the development and management functions.

Sport England's Uniting the Movement strategy (2021–2031) sets out a 10-year vision for reducing inequality in sport and physical activity participation — a framework that directly shapes the priorities and funding of community sport development work across England. Active Partnerships (formerly County Sport Partnerships) are the regional infrastructure organisations that coordinate this work.

Physical inactivity is a major public health challenge — NHS England estimates the cost of physical inactivity to the NHS at over £1 billion annually. Sport England and the government's Office for Health Inequalities and Disparities consistently prioritise increasing activity levels as a preventive health intervention. National Lottery funding via the National Lottery Community Fund and Sport England's direct programmes provides sustained investment in community sport infrastructure.

The government's community sports strategy, NHS referral pathways into sport (Exercise on Referral), the Active Travel England agenda, and levelling-up investment in sports facilities all support demand for community sports development professionals. The role is inherently local and relational — delivering outcomes through community trust, personal relationships, and on-the-ground presence — and is not subject to the displacement pressures that affect more routinised roles.

Morning: delivering a Just Play walking football session at the local leisure centre for adults over 50 — you run the session, chat with participants about barriers to continued involvement, and collect activity data for the quarterly Sport England report. Back at the office, you draft a funding bid to the National Lottery Community Fund for a girls' football programme — pulling together participation data, community consultation evidence, and budget calculations. Afternoon: attending a partnership meeting with the local primary school network and the Active Partnership to agree a new Change4Life programme rollout for the autumn term. End of day: NGB coaching qualification paperwork for two new volunteer coaches joining your cricket development programme.