Job Description:

National Development Chef

Contract: National role with regular travel
Location: National & occasional WFH days
Employment type: 6 month FTC
Salary: Competitive
Role specific benefits: Company Car, eligibility for 10% Management bonus scheme plus excellent Bupa benefits
Hours: Full time

We make health happen

As National Development Chef, you’ll play a pivotal national leadership role shaping the future of dining across Bupa Care Services and Richmond Villages. This is a unique opportunity to influence food culture at scale, elevating resident experience, building chef capability, and setting the standard for excellence in care‑based hospitality.

You’ll lead the creation and delivery of a modern culinary vision, champion innovation, and drive consistency and quality across hundreds of kitchens, all while keeping residents firmly at the heart of every decision.

How you’ll help us make health happen

• Lead and embed a national culinary strategy that delivers exceptional, resident‑centred dining experiences

• Design, launch and evolve the Chefs’ Academy, building a strong pipeline of skilled, confident culinary professionals

• Drive menu innovation, ensuring food is nutritious, inclusive, seasonal, and compliant with clinical and dietary needs

• Coach and mentor chefs at all levels, supporting performance, engagement, and succession planning

• Champion food safety, compliance, and continuous improvement across all sites

Key skills and experience needed for this role

• Proven senior culinary leadership experience within a busy kitchen

• Expert knowledge of IDDSI, allergens management, HACCP, and food safety legislation

• Strong people‑development capability, with experience of coaching and mentoring chefs at all levels and delivering high quality training in a group environment

• Demonstrable experience in menu development, nutrition‑led design, and standardisation

• Confident stakeholder‑management skills, with the ability to influence across operational, clinical, and support functions

Benefits

Our benefits are designed to make health happen for our people. Viva, our global wellbeing programme, supports your mental, physical, financial, social, and environmental wellbeing. We also offer flexible working and a wide range of family‑friendly benefits.

Joining Bupa in this role, you can expect benefits including:

• Competitive salary and management bonus opportunity

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays plus paid volunteer days

• Bupa wellbeing initiatives

• Excellent Pension scheme and  life assurance

• Access to discounts, learning, and development opportunities

Why Bupa?

We’re a health insurer and provider — not driven by shareholders, but by our purpose: helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives and making a better world. Our people bring this purpose to life through being brave, caring, and responsible every day.

At Bupa, we encourage everyone to Be You at Bupa. We champion diversity and inclusivity and actively encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Bupa is a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, committed to providing fair and inclusive recruitment processes and reasonable adjustments where needed.

If you require this advert in an alternative format, please email [email protected].

Time Type:

Full time

Job Area:

Business Development

Locations:

Alveston Leys, Home Based, c/o Angel Court, Home Based c/o Kirkstall Forge