Centre for Thriving Places is looking for one or more freelance web developers to support us to maintain and develop our websites and digital measurement tools. We are a small charity with big ambitions based in Bristol, looking to build long term relationships with developers who share our values.

About us

Centre for Thriving Places was founded in 2010, with the aim of changing the economic compass from pointing to consumption and growth toward wellbeing for people, place and planet. We bring this vision to life through place-based strategic consulting, training and our evidence-based measurement tools, the Thriving Places Index and Happiness Pulse. We work with local authorities, organisations and individuals to provide practical pathways to measure, understand and improve wellbeing. Find out more: centreforthrivingplaces.org

About our measurement tools

We’ve built two industry-leading wellbeing measurement tools which we are constantly developing and improving. Our Thriving Places Index measures how well local authority areas are doing at creating the conditions for people to thrive. The Thriving Places Index has published scores for the local authorities across England and Wales and the latest version was released in March 2020.

The Happiness Pulse online wellbeing measurement tool creates a detailed picture of how people feel and function in their lives, work and communities. Last year we launched a new version of the tool, offering teams and projects the ability to benchmark and track performance, and measure the social impact of their activities.

Web developer brief

We are looking for one or more developers to join a small pool/network of contractors who can work collaboratively and flexibly with our team and each other. We take an agile approach to developing two Ruby on Rails applications and two WordPress sites outlined below.

Web applications

Centre for Thriving Places has two Ruby on Rails web applications thrivingplacesindex.org and app.happinesspulse.org with the potential for further development in the future.

Technical skills required: Ruby on Rails, Javascript, Vue.js, HTML, CSS, Git

These applications involve ongoing maintenance work, some ‘business as usual’ development work, and projects. Projects are typically 2-4 days long, custom development work such as building a new question module for the Happiness Pulse app for a client.

WordPress sites

We also have two WordPress sites – our main site centreforthrivingplaces.org and the front end marketing site for happinesspulse.org.

Technical skills required: PHP / WordPress, HTML, CSS

These sites currently require basic maintenance and some minor development work.

Further details

Knowledge and experience of any of the following would also be desirable: UX design; accessibility standards; site security.

We are not expecting one developer to hold all the technical skills listed, so please do get in touch if you feel you could fulfill part of the brief.

Our work and requirements for digital development or maintenance fluctuate a lot. We hope by creating a pool/network of people we become more flexible to growing client demand. At the moment we would require on average 1-3 days per month from you but this will vary depending on the size of and skills within the developer pool, and on client projects and funding for development.

If you’re located in or near Bristol that would be a bonus but isn’t essential.

Next steps

If you’re interested in joining our web team, we’d love to hear from you.

Please email Sophie Sayer at hello@centreforthrivingplaces.org with some information about yourself, your skills and experience in relation to the brief, and your availability. If you have any questions, please do get in touch on the same email.