Kirk Lower – Volunteer Advisor

Kirk joined Movement to Work as a volunteer advisor in January 2023 having taken early retirement from Health Education England, where he led the Talent for Care national strategy comprising the promotion and oversight of the NHS’s work experience activities and its access to employment programmes, the growth of NHS apprenticeships (now 25,000 starts pa) and the training of volunteers. 

The Talent for Care programme led to Kirk’s long-term association with Movement to Work, representing the NHS, and this partnership has both encouraged and shaped his new relationship with ‘the Movement’.

Before HEE, Kirk was the Human Resource Director of a NHS teaching hospital on the east coast of England and he previously worked as the HRD in two large Further Education colleges – one in southeast London, the other in Norwich. 

Having left full-time employment, and in addition to joining Movement to Work, Kirk continues as the Chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s Route Panel for Health and Science (and Sport), and he is an apprenticeship strategy advisor to BPP University. He is also a FE college governor serving the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth communities and he supports a number of other organisations’ social mobility work on an ad hoc basis.