Loneliness & Support Officer

The Silver Line Helpline is recruiting for 6x Loneliness & Support Officers to join their fantastic team providing a vital service to older people across the UK. The Silver Line Helpline is a free, confidential telephone service offering friendship, conversation and support to older people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Representing the values of The Silver Line Helpline and Age UK, you will be the first point of contact for incoming calls from older people in need of support or just a friendly chat. Given the nature of the helpline each day will be varied and you will need to be adaptable to lots of unique situations.

This exciting opportunity is perfect for a friendly individual with effective communication skills and the ability to maintain high standards with an emphasis on empathy, patience and understanding.

Working as part of this supportive team, you will adhere to all safeguarding procedures in order to keep callers safe from potential abuse or neglect.

• We have 6 part-time vacancies working 28 hours across days and evenings.

These exciting positions offer hybrid working between home and our Blackpool office. We currently require office attendance a minimum of once a quarter. You may also be asked to attend the office occasionally for training or other reasons, as required. You will be on a hybrid contract and must cover the costs of all travel to the office yourself. Our office attendance requirements will be reviewed later in 2026.

Please note that this post does require weekend and bank holiday working on a shift pattern basis. We will provide example shift rotas during the recruitment process, which you will need to review and confirm if it is feasible for you. If successful, the first 3 induction days will be onsite in our Blackpool office.

Please note: before joining the National Services team at Age UK, we want to be open that the organisation is in a period of change. Age UK works as a network of over 100 independent partners, with national services delivered by the charity and local services delivered by partners across the UK. Our new strategy means more services will be delivered locally in future, although we think our National Services will continue to play an important role. You would be joining a team that is evolving and changing to develop new ways of supporting older people, and we want you to have this context as you consider your application.

In your Supporting Statement, please include examples of how you meet the Must Have criteria below.

Must haves:

The below competencies will be assess at the indicated stage of the recruitment process.
Application = A, Interview = I, Test = T, Presentation = P

Experience
High levels of personal and emotional resilience and the ability to stay calm during challenging and pressured situations. A, I
Ability to manage a busy workload and adapt to change in a fast-paced service. A, I

Skills and knowledge
Knowledge of safeguarding with the ability to assess and manage risk independently. A, I, T
Understanding and knowledge of mental health issues. I
The resilience to work shifts when almost all time is spent on the phone, remaining engaged, active and responsive on every call. I
Excellent IT skills including Microsoft Office, call handling, and CRM systems. A, I, T
Ability to learn and become competent with new technology and systems. I, T
Data entry skills. I, T
Ability to multitask and focus on calls, whilst entering data and communicating effectively via IT systems. I, T
Ability to work within and meet service KPIs on call length, utilisation and other key targets. I
Ability to maintain clear boundaries with callers. I
Understanding of the issues facing older people, particularly the impact of loneliness and isolation on older people. A, I

Personal attributes
Ability to respond in a non-judgemental, empathetic, respectful and friendly manner in all situations. I
Excellent interpersonal, customer service and communication skills, with the ability to adapt communication style to meet the needs of the caller. A, I
Ability to navigate challenging topics of conversation with good listening skills and excellent conversational skills. I
Ability to adhere to policies and procedures. I
Being a positive team player. I
A commitment to promoting equality and diversity. I
A passion for supporting older people. I

Great to haves

Experience

• Experience in working in services to support older people. I
• Experience working with colleagues remotely. I
• Experience working within services that operate outside of normal working hours. I

What we offer in return

• Competitive salary, 26 days annual leave + bank holidays + annual leave purchase scheme
• Excellent pension scheme, life assurance, Health cashback plan and EAP
• Car Benefit Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme and Season Ticket Loan
• Techscheme - buy any tech from Apple or Currys, up to £1000, and spread the cost over 12 months, interest free
• Blue Light Card Scheme
• You Did It Awards recognition awards from £100-250
• Many additional benefits

Additional Information

Supporting statements and anonymisation
Candidates are expected to provide a supporting statement that explains how they meet the competencies annotated with an 'A' in the job description, to assess suitability for the position. Age UK acknowledges and accepts that AI may be used to support the application; we do expect candidates to personalise experience, knowledge and skills and failure to do so, may result in your application being rejected.

Please submit a Word version of your CV as it will be anonymised by our recruitment system when you apply for a role. Our system is unable to anonymise supporting statements and heavily formatted CVs. Please could you remove any personal information including your name before you upload to support our inclusive recruitment process. All equalities monitoring information is also anonymised and not shared with the hiring panel. Your name and address will only be known to us if invited for interview.

Equal opportunities & Disability Confident Scheme
Age UK is an Equal Opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates, regardless of age, sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital/civil partnership status, or pregnancy and maternity. Age UK is a Disability Confident Scheme employer. Due to high numbers of applications received, Age UK reserves the right to limit the overall number of interviews offered, and therefore, it may not always be practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people that meet the minimum criteria for the job.

Reasonable adjustments
Disabled job seekers can access reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. All requests for reasonable adjustments are considered on a case-by-case basis, in collaboration with the disabled job seeker to best meet their needs, by contacting the Recruitment Team. Disability disclosures will be kept confidential and only shared on a need-to-know basis to support the implementation of adjustments. Disclosures will not be used to inform hiring decisions.

Age UK is committed to safeguarding adults at risk, and children, from abuse and neglect. We expect everyone who works with us to share this commitment.

Early application is encouraged as we will review applications throughout the advertising period and reserve the right to close the advert at any time.

Age UK politely requests no contact from recruitment agencies or media sales. We do not accept speculative CVs from recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.