About Macmillan Cancer Support
What is Macmillan Cancer Support?
Macmillan Cancer Support is one of the UK's largest cancer charities, and its careers site puts it plainly: "At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer." It provides cancer information and support, runs the Macmillan Support Line and Online Community, funds and influences NHS cancer services, campaigns for better care and supports the wider cancer workforce. Macmillan says it is "98% funded by voluntary donations", so fundraising, marketing and innovation sit alongside services at the centre of the organisation. Its values are With Strength, With Heart and With Ambition - the last still anchored in founder Douglas Macmillan's ambition to "stand for betterness".
Where will I work?
Macmillan advertises three patterns on its vacancy list: home-based (UK), hybrid, and mobile field roles. Hybrid adverts describe a "split between home and our London Office", or being "Hybrid between home and our London, Shipley or Glasgow Office". The benefits page adds that, depending on the role, "you may be able to work from home full-time, or on a dual location arrangement, where you work partly from home and partly from a Macmillan office".
What is the Macmillan team like?
Macmillan is built from eight function areas: Fundraising, Marketing and Innovation; Services; Strategy and Performance; Technology; Advocacy and Communications; Finance, Legal and Audit; People; and the Chief Executive Office. Colleagues are backed by an employee forum called Our Voice, eight employee network groups, trained mental health first-aiders and wellbeing champions in every directorate. Applications are "anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed", and Macmillan hires "for a mixture of technical skills and experience, knowledge, potential, values and behaviours".
Work-Life Balance
Full time at Macmillan is 34.5 hours, and adverts repeat the commitment: "Full time (34.5 hours), we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours." The benefits page sets out the role-dependent options: "compress your full-time hours (34.5 hours) into 4 days instead of 5 or compress your full-time hours into 9 days instead of 10 days over a fortnight, so you have 1 day off every other week", set your own start and finish around "core working hours of 10am to 4pm", work part-time, or job share. Leave begins at "25 days holiday a year, plus an additional day for each full year ... that you work here (up to 30 days)" and "8 Bank Holidays that can be taken at a time that suits you", with an extra paid "Macmillan day off" usually in December, one paid volunteering day, and the option to buy a week more.
Perks and Benefits
- Bank holidays added to your entitlement, taken when you prefer
- Pension from day one, with your contributions matched up to 7.5%
- Life insurance at 3 x annual salary
- 52 weeks of family leave for primary parents, 18 of them at full pay
- Adoption covered by the same enhanced family leave policy
- Coaching open to all, professional qualifications and 5 days of paid study leave
- Mental health first-aiders and an EAP including free counselling
- Discounts across more than 800 high street brands and shops
- Unpaid career break of up to 6 months after 2 years' service