Nursery Manager

Bright Horizons UK; City of Edinburgh; On-site; GBP 41,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading childcare organization is seeking a Nursery Manager in Edinburgh to lead a team in providing excellent care and education. The ideal candidate should have a Level 3 Early Years qualification and experience in leadership roles. Responsibilities include managing safeguarding policies and driving team performance, with a focus on employee engagement and quality care. The position offers a competitive salary and various benefits, including childcare discounts and professional development opportunities.

Benefits

Childcare discount of 100% for first child

Enhanced parental leave

25 days annual leave

Pension

Financial and wellbeing benefits

Professional development programme access

Qualifications

• Full and relevant Level 3 or above Early Years qualification.
• Experience within an Early Years leadership role.
• Confident decision maker with strong commercial understanding.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to deliver outstanding care and education.
• Act as Designated Safeguarding Lead.
• Manage recruitment and develop high-performing colleagues.

Skills

Leadership

Regulatory compliance

Safeguarding knowledge

Team development

Decision making

Education

Level 3 Early Years qualification

Job description

Nursery – Cramond

Salary – £41,000 per annum (dependent on qualification/s and experience)

Location – Edinburgh

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 Cramond nursery.

Bright Horizons Cramond Early Learning and Childcare is a welcoming and purpose-built nursery located in the green outskirts of Edinburgh, offering care for children aged 3 months to 5 years. The nursery is known for its bright, spacious rooms tailored to each age group, sensory play areas, and outdoor learning spaces that encourage curiosity and development. Staff are warm, attentive, and committed to nurturing each child’s emotional wellbeing through the Nurture Approach. The nursery provides all-inclusive care, including meals, snacks, nappies, and wipes, prepared fresh onsite by a skilled chef.

Conveniently situated on Whitehouse Road (EH4 6NN), it benefits from strong commuter links, with nearby bus routes making it easily accessible from across Edinburgh.

Our Benefits

• £41,000 per annum
• Childcare discount of 100% for first child
• 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

We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all ages and backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants. Please note, due to our sector all roles are subject to an Enhanced DBS.

If you want to make a difference, with a company who has been voted Great Place to Work every year since 2006, apply today!

We look forward to receiving your application!

If you experience any problems, please [e-mail] we will be happy to help.