Nursery Manager

Bright Horizons Family Solutions; Basingstoke; On-site; GBP 41,000 - 54,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Childcare discount

Bonus up to £6,000

Enhanced parental leave

25 days annual leave

Pension

Wellbeing benefits including 24/7 GP

Job summary

Bright Horizons Chineham Park Day Nursery and Pre School seeks a dedicated Nursery Manager to lead our team, delivering exceptional care and education for children aged 3 months to 5 years.

Based at Chineham Park, Basingstoke, the role offers safeguarding responsibilities, staff development, and driving nursery performance in line with regulatory standards and our HEART culture.

Qualifications

• Full and relevant Level 3+ Early Years qualification.
• Experience leading an Early Years setting and teams.
• Experience with regulatory inspections achieving a Good/Outstanding outcome.
• Ability to build high-performance teams and ensure high-quality pedagogy.
• Strong safeguarding knowledge and child protection understanding.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to deliver outstanding care and education for children aged 3 months to 5 years.
• Act as Designated Safeguarding Lead and manage safeguarding policies.
• Partner with support office to recruit, nurture, and develop staff.
• Identify and implement commercial plans to drive growth and cost efficiency.

Skills

Leadership experience

Team development

Regulatory compliance

Safeguarding knowledge

Decision making

Education

Level 3 Early Years qualification

Job description

Nursery – Bright Horizons Chineham Park Day Nursery and Pre School

Salary – £40,993 - £53,634 per annum (dependant on qualification/s and experience)

Job Type - Initially at Chineham Park until August 2027, following this, this will be a field manager role across Kingston-upon-Thames, Surbiton, Andover, Basingstoke, Farnham, and Fleet

Location – Chineham Park, Basingstoke

Are you looking to work for an organisation whose culture is driven by our HEART principles – Honesty, Excellence, Accountability, Respect, and Teamwork? Where you can be yourself, feel supported, and help to make a difference to the next generation? Somewhere you can say: “I did that.”

We’re looking for a Nursery Manager to join our Chineham park nursery.

The nursery is located on Chineham Business Park well served by bus routes: 6, 7, 655, 656 & 657. The setting is open Monday to Friday 7.30am – 6pm and offers childcare to 125 children between the ages of 3 months to 5 years, set out over five different rooms, each tailored to a different age group.

Our Benefits

• Childcare discount of 100% for first child*
• Competitive bonus of up to £6,000, awarded in line with Ofsted inspection outcomes
• Enhanced parental leave
• 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and paid Christmas closure. Ability to also purchase additional leave*
• Pension
• Financial and wellbeing benefits including 24/7 virtual GP appointments, early access to wages, and more
• Professional development programme access for every stage of your career, including access to a careers coach

*Subject to T&Cs

The Role

As a Nursery Manager, you will lead a team to deliver outstanding care and education to all the children in your setting, and through inspirational leadership drive employee engagement, retention and performance. You will act as Designated Safeguarding Lead, holding overall responsibility for the day to day running of the nursery, and management of safeguarding policies. You will work in partnership with support office teams to recruit, nurture, and continuously develop high performing colleagues, as well as identify and implement commercial plans and strategies to deliver FTE growth. You will optimise nursery performance, revenue generation, and cost efficiency in line with staff ratio requirements.

What we’re looking for

• Full and relevant Level 3 or above Early Years qualification
• Experience within an Early Years leadership role (ideally as a Nursery Manager, Deputy Manager, Assistant Manager or similar)
• Experience of participating with a regulatory inspection, leading to a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ outcome
• Experience of developing high performance teams, with effective regulatory compliance, quality improvement, delivery of high-quality pedagogy, innovation and service excellence
• Confident decision maker, with ability to support change and understanding of complex relationship between commercial and service excellence within a regulated setting
• Strong knowledge and understanding of Safeguarding, Child Protection, and the wider legislative requirements for working with children
• Ability to develop trust and strong working partnerships with both colleagues and parents/ carers

Bright Horizons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. This post is subject to safer recruitment practice and pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS check, which will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed.

We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all ages and backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants.